Oatmeal and the Meaning of Life

I've been at war with oatmeal all my life.

I eat oatmeal because I'm a good little girl. It is cheaper than packaged cereal, it is whole grain, and it contains no added sugar or salt or fat. It is also diverse, multicultural, and tolerant.

But it always boils over. Makes the pot hard to clean. Makes the cheapo Chinese stove top a mess.

After all the events of the previous years, which got me thinking a lot about my own death, I contemplated how much time and energy I devoted to cleaning boiled-over oatmeal from pots, stovetop, and the underside of the stove. it was my own existential crisis.

I think questions like this are part of the reason that people don't take women's writing seriously. Alexander the Great, a man, wept when he realized that he had no more worlds to conquer. Me, a woman, I wept, metaphorically, over spilled oatmeal.

So today I'm trying something new. I'm using a pot that is so huge I'm hoping the oatmeal won't make it up the sides of the pot.

Working so far.

I found this quote on the web. No idea if it is accurate:

"Adding a starchy substance such as rice or noodles [or oatmeal] to boiling water increases the surface tension of the water. When it's just plain water boiling the surface tension of the water can't hold back the force of the steam rising and the bubbles burst. Starches increase this surface tension making the bubbles more elastic/pliable (essentially creating a foam), thus requiring more force for them to burst. This makes the bubbles last longer which allows them to build up and eventually boil over."