No instant breakfast and March

See El's recent post on breakfasts - lots of good ideas in the comments too. http://fastgrowtheweeds.com/2009/03/03/on-breakfast/

This morning as I was heating up my organic traditional rolled oats in the microwave at work, a co-worker said to me, "my kids eat that instant oatmeal too." Visions of fake maple flavor in flattened oats reared up in my mind. I replied, "these are not instant. These are traditional oats." I proceeded to explain my technique: add boiling water at night, let sit in a to-go coffee cup and reheat in ceramic in the microwave at work the next morning, add local honey and dried fruit. I couldn't resist and ended my response with, "I'm too much of a foodie to eat instant." Needless to say, she probably won't comment on my foodstuff again.

I was reading from The Rural Life by Verlyn Klinkenborg on the train this morning. I was struck by this passage from the chapter titled March.

To northern gardeners, this time of year is full of anxious pleasure. Even as they daydream about the botanical pleasures of June and July, ordinary mortals find themselves nearly defeated by the gardening deadlines that pass so swiftly in March. Extraordinary mortals - whose seeds arrived two months ago, whose windows are now full of seedlings, and who are ready to sow peas and carrots the instant the soil thaws - will suffer torments of their own when the perfections they're planning somehow fail to germinate or blossom. A garden is just a way of mapping the strengths and limitations of your personality onto the soil. It would be too much to bear if nature didn't temper a gardener's ambition or laziness with her own unsolicited abundance.