Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal — The First Warm Thing After the Storm

Hurricane Harvey. I'm going to write about this because it happened and because not writing about it would be dishonest, but I want to say upfront: we were lucky. My family was lucky. Not everyone in Houston was. The storm made landfall Friday night as a Category 4 on the Texas coast. By Saturday, it stalled over Houston and started dumping rain — not hours of rain, not a day of rain, but four days of continuous, relentless, biblical rain. Fifty inches in some areas. Fifty inches. My house in Alief is on higher ground — relatively. We didn't flood. The water came up to the edge of the driveway and stopped. I stood at my front door at 3 AM on Sunday watching the water and thinking: if it comes up six more inches, I'm done. It didn't. Six inches of grace. Ma's house flooded. Three inches in the living room. I couldn't get to her for two days because the streets were rivers. I called her every hour. She said, "I'm on the couch. The water is in the kitchen. I'm fine." Mai Tran, sitting on a couch in a flooded house, telling me she's fine. This woman. Tuesday the water receded enough that I could get my truck through. I drove to Ma's in water up to my door panels and found her in the kitchen, mopping. Mopping. The water had receded and she was already cleaning. The furniture was ruined. The carpet was ruined. Huy's recliner — the chair he'd sat in every evening for thirty years — was waterlogged and destroyed. Ma looked at it and said, "It was old anyway." I know she was lying because she touched the armrest before we carried it to the curb. The kids were at Christine's in Katy, which flooded worse. Christine's house took a foot of water. She and Doug and the kids evacuated to a hotel. Everyone was safe. Tyler texted me updates every hour. Emma called crying on Sunday night. Lily was scared. I didn't cook this week. There was nothing to cook. I spent four days cleaning Ma's house, ripping out carpet, hauling soaked furniture to the curb, spraying bleach on everything. Half the neighborhood was doing the same thing. Ray and Maria's house was destroyed — four feet of water. They stayed with their daughter in Pearland. I'm not going to write about food this week. Some weeks aren't about food. Some weeks are about water, and waiting, and holding on.

The first thing I made when it was over — when Ma’s carpet was ripped out and the bleach smell had settled into my hands and I finally sat down in my own kitchen — was a bowl of oatmeal. Not because I was ready to cook again. I wasn’t. But because I was hungry and tired and it was the only thing I had the energy to make: boil water, stir, sit down. Maple brown sugar oatmeal. It was warm. After a week like that, warm was enough.

Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal

Prep Time: 2 minutes | Cook Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 7 minutes | Servings: 2

Ingredients

• 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 2 cups water (or 1 cup water and 1 cup milk for creamier oatmeal)
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• Pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Boil the liquid. Bring water (or water and milk) to a boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the pinch of salt.
2. Cook the oats. Stir in the rolled oats. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the oats are tender and the mixture has thickened.
3. Add the good stuff. Remove from heat. Stir in the maple syrup, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon until the butter is melted and everything is combined.
4. Serve. Divide between two bowls. Top with an extra drizzle of maple syrup or a sprinkle of brown sugar if you want it.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 270 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 48g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 85mg