The stew secret is oatmeal?
Please tell me it’s snot

Robyn’s Hood
By Robyn McCloskey

Years ago, while living in a congested townhouse development, my husband and I became acquainted with the neighbors a few doors down from us. There was a husband, a wife and two small children. Since we hadn’t yet had our third child, we too were a husband, a wife and two small children.
Our neighbor was a highly intellectual, self-made man who could pontificate for hours on the minutia of life that most of us care absolutely nothing about. She was a happy, outgoing woman who grew up in the area and could tell you the name of the original owner of the farm before everything was bulldozed to make way for the glorified rowhomes that all of us now lived in.
They were a throwback to a different era. Sort of a combination MacGyver meets Dr. Quinn meets Amazing Race. They were extremely resourceful people, living in such a manner that one could easily envision them during the Little House on the Prairie years.
"Pa, I don’t understand, the room is so dark yet the sun is still shining . . . I’m afraid."
"Why, it’s not getting dark, little Mary, you see you contracted scarlet fever as a baby and now you’re going blind. But don’t worry, I’ll invent Braille so you’ll still be able to read. And I’ll train our dog Jack to help you cross the street, so you’ll still be able to visit Oleson’s Mercantile, even though we can’t afford to buy candy, but that’s OK because I’ll just make you some from the maple tree out front!"
"Oh thank you, Pa, now I’m not scared anymore!"
Their oldest child was a well-mannered girl who probably will grow up to kick butt on Survivor. Their youngest was a typical boy, always playing in the mud, climbing trees and rescuing all manner of vermin. He was one of those kids who constantly had a runny nose, which led us to endearingly nickname him "glazed donut boy."
It was during one particularly rough winter when we had been snowed in for a few days that they called and invited us over for stew. We were welcomed into their home with the smell of freshly baked bread and the sight of a roaring fire. Their son was sitting in his highchair, glazed donut lip and all, eating oatmeal with his bare hands and smearing it in his hair.
As we began eating I couldn’t help myself and foolishly asked for the recipe. The husband explained how he had begun the stew three days earlier, so that the flavors could "marry," and then he went on and on ad infinitum about every detail involved in making such a delicious stew.
He did, however, catch my attention when he announced that he was going to reveal his secret ingredient: the thickening agent.
The secret, he told us as we sat spellbound, awaiting the big revelation, was oatmeal. But not just any oatmeal, oh no, that would be wasteful. The secret, he told us as we sat even more spellbound than before, was that every morning as his son was finishing breakfast, he’d scrape the high chair clean and add it to the stew.
"Oh, that’s funny," I chortled. "Now what do you really use?"
His look suddenly seemed a tad unfriendly. "What do you mean what do I really use?"
"To thicken the stew . . . what do you use?"
"Oatmeal. My son’s leftover oatmeal."
"Please tell me you’re kidding."
"Why would I be kidding? Wasting food is not funny."
Damn. He wasn’t kidding. Quite the quandary I now found myself in. Do I suppress my dry-heaving and continue to eat the best bowl of beef stew I have ever tasted while not making eye contact with "glazed donut boy," or do I politely push my bowl away and just eat the homemade bread, hoping against hope that the oatmeal isn’t also the secret as a mighty fine yeast booster?
Since I already was on my third full bowl, I decided it would not be impolite to stop eating. But even now, on really cold winter days, I find myself longing for a bowl of that tasty stew.
In time, I came to accept that a little nasal fluid probably never hurt stew. But I do wish the guy got to finish telling his story about what happened to the family’s dog just before that nasty snowstorm hit. ••
Robyn McCloskey’s column appears each week in the Northeast Times. She can be reached at crmccloskey@verizon.net