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Oatmeal | Feb 20 2003

“The original soufflé was an accident by the chef to the king of France.”

I gesture to the bowl of oatmeal to indicate that history has repeated itself.

“This is still just oatmeal,” she says. “All you did was cook it a different way.”

Earlier, during a cooking-show-style demonstration of how I make oatmeal, I happened to use the word motherfucker.

“Wait,” she said. “You can’t say motherfucker on a cooking show.”

“What do you mean?” I said. “This show is going to be called Motherfucker.”

Now, though, I think it should be called Oatmeal. Each morning I make oatmeal, the same as always, except I have someone videotape me as do it and as I chat about some unrelated subject, since the instructions for preparing oatmeal should take no more than perhaps fifteen seconds to convey. Add some quick editing, slap on a bouncy theme song, and poof, it’s a five-minute cooking show on Oblivio. A cooking show, I should add, that’s really no different from any other cooking show, save that I happen to make the same thing each time: oatmeal.

This is a old idea for me. When I was a kid I read a story about a painter who spends his entire life painting the same tree. Years later, tripping on acid, I remembered this story and decided to look for something that could serve as my tree. I couldn’t find anything and instead found myself staring at a certain spot on the floor, convinced that if I stared long enough (this is what I told people) something would spill there.

That something, I now realize, is oatmeal.

The problem is finding someone to videotape me. Would you, dear reader, videotape me? Naturally it would be best (Rosecrans Baldwin dared me to mention this) if you were also my girlfriend, for that way you’d already be at my place, or I’d be at your place, when it came time for breakfast. However since you are not my girlfriend (of this I am certain!), I propose a purely platonic exchange of slapdash videotaping and editing services for a hot and yummy oatmeal breakfast.

Seriously: I am looking for a kindhearted Brooklynite with video chops (plus a camera!) to help me just one time, just to see.

Here I am reminded, for better or worse, of a quote by the former world chess champion, Garry Kasparov. A bad plan, Kasparov said, is better than no plan. Of course it should be noted that Kasparov made his career as a relentlessly brilliant attacker, a player with uncanny intuition, lightning-fast vision, and a notorious knack for switching strategies mid-game. Also he was referring to chess.