At last Sunday's kickoff meeting in the Intervale, our little subgroup of Burlington-area localvores  (check out the blog!) all chipped in for a huge 30-pound bag of rolled oats, which is now sitting on one of my dining room chairs. People have been stopping by my apartment to dip out their shares. Not everyone has gotten their portion yet, but there's still a lot left  — enough to fill a large laundry basket to the brim.

What to do with all of this oaty goodness? My friend Allaire plans to host a huge granola-making party toward the middle of the month, and I expect we'll use a bunch of the oats then, roasting them with oil and maple syrup or honey, and maybe some dried local berries, if we can find any or have the patience to dry them ourselves. In the meantime, another friend has offered the use of a flour mill, so some people plan to make oat flour for baking cookies and biscuits, etc. I have a Scottish cookbook with lots of oat-based recipies, and plan to cook some stuff from that. This morning, though, I opted for just plain-old oatmeal.

  I usually make oatmeal from steel-cut groats, which tend to take a long time to cook, so it was nice that the rolled oats were much speedier — about 15 minutes. I mixed in butter, maple syrup and salt, and put some Monument Farms Dairy half-and-half on top. (For a synopsis of Vermont-based dairies, see this Seven Days interview with Anthony Pollina, which was published in mid-July.)

Also for breakfast, I mushed up some blackcurrants with honey and boiled them for about 7-10 minutes, which made a pretty decent jam. I put that on some of the sourdough bread, toasted, and also had a glass of water. I'm really well-hydrated these days. I do have a gallon of apple cider in the fridge, but it usually tastes too sweet to me, to drink that often. Maybe I'll try watering some down to have with lunch.

Lunch is really late today, but I plan to make a simple scrambled-egg sandwich on toast with salt and pepper, and maybe stick in some dill from our garden. I'll have an heirloom tomato bought from City Market on the side.