One of the things that has happened in my adult life is an interest in trying new foods. I’ve tasted, and fallen in love with foods from all over the world. Some foods, that if you told my 18-year old self a decade and a half ago that I’d enjoy – I’d have laughed at you, then polished off the rest of my large pepperoni and extra cheese pizza.

There are, however, some things that I have tried and just cannot like. I’ve learned a lot about myself and food over these years of food adventures. For example: texture. It actually has come to play a huge role in, of course, the one type of food I just want to like already. Seafood.

It smells amazing. Looks amazing. But I just can’t get past that texture. And it’s horrible. And heartbreaking.

Which brings me to oatmeal.

Like seafood, I continue to try it every now and again. Hoping that something has changed.

…and nope.

After my son was born, I began living off of Jamie Eason’s Turkey Meatloaf muffins. Guess what’s in them? Steel cut oats. There’s a start, I thought to myself as I popped my 100th one in my mouth. (They were super easy to eat with one hand and hold a baby in the other, and momma needs to eat!).

Next came lactation balls to try to keep my supply up while I was nursing him. The recipe a friend gave me had oats in it. Now we’re getting somewhere…

Fast forward to yesterday. I got a few things of the Quaker Instant Oats on sale at one of my local stores about two weeks ago. I figured it was my perfect opportunity to try again.

Made up my oats yesterday around lunch time because I was feeling lazy that morning and instead of prepping something, I just grabbed the package and tossed it into my work tote. While they were “standing for 2-minutes” in scalding hot water, I worked on cleaning up our photo gallery online here at work, letting the smell of maple and brown sugar fill my nose.

Damn, these better taste as good as they smell!

After a few minutes, I dug in. Then promptly resisted the urge to spit them right back out.

The oats were sweet, and partly tasted delicious (does that many any sense at all? It did in my head…), but I just couldn’t. I managed to gag down about 2/3 of the cup before tossing it. And it lingered with me the rest of the day. Every time I even thought about them, or when I was recalling the “incident” to my husband later that day, gag. Legitimate gagging.

But, a sucker for punishment, I’m not ready to give up yet. Even if I have to hunt down a unicorn and steal it’s sparkle to sprinkle over the top, I’ll do it. (Same with seafood).

What is YOUR favorite way to have your oatmeal?