Oatmeal Tips: Aquaman Edition

Welcome back to "Oatmeal Tips," everybody's favorite part of the "blog"! I noticed thanks to facebook that Laura Gjovaag, the curator of the Aquaman "blog," occasionally makes oatmeal for her husband. This is just one of the many evils of facebook to which I am resigned - how it brings out the oatmeal voyeur in me. Naturally, I asked Ms. Gjovaag for an oatmeal tip. She responded with admirable alacrity: "Um. I put 3/4 a cup of oatmeal per person in a pot, put in enough water that I can stir it without shoulder strain, then set it on the cooktop and stir until it starts to spit at me. I like mine with either brown sugar or honey. Hubby takes his with milk and brown sugar. Sometimes we put dried fruit in. To be honest, I've been reading your oatmeal tips and figured you had my oatmeal style covered. I'm a very basic cook." Pshaw, Ms. Gjovaag! You have hit upon a very important aspect of oatmeal cookery when you say "stir until it starts to spit at me." An oatmeal amateur will rely on a clock or kitchen timer to tell him or her that the oatmeal is "ready." Those who are truly "in the know" let our oatmeal speak to us. This is the lesson of Ms. Gjovaag's method: Trust the oatmeal. Now. I wonder if Aquaman could survive in oatmeal. I still think back fondly on the time he swam around in orange juice and champagne.