I haven’t written here in a while, because too many reasons, but I discovered something today, and I don’t know what else to do with it, so here goes.

Last year about this time I was diagnosed with a non-alcoholic fatty liver, which means I’m supposed to avoid (among many, many other things) butter fats. Given my strong belief that virtually every dish can be improved by the addition of cheese and / or (probably and) butter, this has caused considerable culinary trauma in my life.

For example, for breakfast almost every morning I eat steel-cut oats with mixed berries (thawed from frozen), protein powder, and creatine powder. These ingredients alone, however, produce a mixture that has a grainy texture, because the powdered supplements don’t easily emulsify. To improve mouth feel (and flavour, obviously), I had been adding a substantial spoonful of butter, which would melt, emulsify the powders, and make for a much more satisfying breakfast. Because butter makes better.

But now? No butter. No better.

For the last year, I’ve been stoically eating my gritty oatmeal (and sometimes cheating on a weekend), when I got an idea – what if I substituted olive oil (a permissible fat) for the butter? And it worked! Sort of. The mouth feel was so much better, but the flavour was admittedly more olive-y (new word for you there) than I would have liked.

Still, I would gladly have lived with that trade-off for the foreseeable future if I hadn’t had a second idea this morning – what about grape seed oil? And I have to say, I’m a bit of a genius. The grape seed oil produces a mouth feel that’s just as satisfying, but its flavour is so delicate that it almost goes unnoticed. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I probably would have missed it entirely. Not butter, but delicious.

So, there you have it. The world is still full of insoluble crises, but at least I solved your oatmeal.