Samantha Stephens, she's oat-standing

Okay, so last month I discovered that Yahoo's new CEO was part of the cupcake cult along with me.  Now I read that there's a woman in New York who is one of the secret Order of the Oats, another food obsession of which I am a card-carrying member.

Samantha Stephens is the owner of a place called OatMeals.  It's basically a house of oats.  You get a bowl of oatmeal and a buffet of toppings to choose from, like a froyo shop.  And we all know how much I love those.  What really puts it over the edge for me is that along with the traditional sweet oatmeal concoctions, Stephens also has toppings for those who have discovered the wonder that is savory oatmeal.  Health and budget brought oatmeal to Stephens initially, but like the rest of the Order, it's oatmeal's potential to be transformed into an endless variety of combinations.  Although the whole health angle gets a little skewed by the possibility of adding in bacon.  But hey, bacon is good for the soul.

All I know about Stephens is what I read in Serious Eats and on the restaurant's website, but it's enough to make me like her.  She left J.P. Morgan to open this shrine to oats, adorned with various oat-y memorabilia, and offers toppings like figs and gorgonzola based on the rationale that 'You see salads topped with [it], so why not oatmeal?'  She even offers baked goods made from oatmeal and oat flour.  Oatmeal cookie dough truffles?  This is the exact toll price to cross the bridge of lifetime friendship with me.

I'm still vaguely planning to get myself up to New York eventually, and this place is now on my list of things I must do.  And if Stephens just so happens to be there when I visit, we might just become BFFs.  We can reenact the bowl-sipping scene in 'Beauty and the Beast' and make a serious dent in that 50-pound sack of oats.

Instant rant-meal: just add water

Okay, before I enter into this rant, you have to understand something: I watch a lot of TV that, if it was food, would be empty calories.  I use it as the background noise that keeps me from thinking that every creak in the wall is a serial killer, and to try and quiet the many trains of thought constantly leaving the station of my brain.

Having said that, Saturday night I was watching the second season of 'Biggest Loser' on Netflix Instant, with our newly-returned access to the internet.  I tend to favor TV series that don't require me to be constantly paying attention.  Unfortunately, during a moment that I was paying attention to the ever-so-slightly contrived weight loss show, they were in the middle of one of those really obvious infomercial moments.  A trainer walks in and asks if they've eaten breakfast, then takes them into the kitchen to show them a great option: oatmeal!

'We can eat oatmeal?' a contestant asks.  Why yes, in fact, you can!  But this isn't just oatmeal.  It's Quaker Weight Control Instant Oatmeal.  It has fiber and protein and dairy-flavored pixie dust, and just 160 calories in a single packet.  Wait, what?!  I went from doing something random online to searching for someone to rant to.  Because that's freaking ridiculous.  In that one packet there couldn't have been more than 1/4 of a cup of actual instant oatmeal.  And I am obsessed with making oatmeal (seriously, I had it for dinner last night), so I know that that amount of straight-up oatmeal is just 75 calories.  So that means that over half of the calories are coming from whatever else is in there.  Basically, the powdered dairy and flavorings.

Now, I am not against ready-made, portion-controlled things.  I mean, I stuck Stove Top in a mushroom, I'm always doctoring up cake mixes in baking, and I do often take advantage of things that are 'light' for the sake of a few calories.  It just made me so mad, because the people who saw this little vignette could save calories and cash by just taking a regular old tub of instant oatmeal, some non-dairy creamer, maybe some Splenda and dried fruit, put it into little baggies, and they'd have the exact same thing.  I know it's advertising, the point is to sell something.  I just hate that the selling point in this case is a statistic that relies on the consumer not having the rest of the numbers in order to look impressive.

Okay, I feel better now.  You can all go about your regularly-scheduled Monday now.