Oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts is great way to start the day.
I suspect coarse-cut oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts is a breakfast nutritionists would call ideal. I say suspect because I don’t talk to many nutritionists. When I do eat oatmeal I take it with a pat of butter and sugar allowing the two to melt together in the center of the bowl before stirring it up. In fact until this past weekend I had never had oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts. And I didn’t know I was ordering it either for what I ordered at M. Wells Dinette was dish listed on the chalkboard menu as something like foie and oats with maple ($16). There was no mention of the crunchy granola component of this hautemeal on the menu at all.
Breakfast of champions.
Leave it to Hugue Dufour to cast such a decadent meat as the star of a dish that seems like it could have come from the Moosewood Cookbook. Dried cranberries, blueberries, apricots, and walnuts are right at home with maple and oatmeal, but seem out of place with foie. One spoonful of the rich sweet, fatty concoction dispelled any such concern. In a flash of gastronomic alchemy foie gras became virtuous and oatmeal rose to an unparalleled level of decadence. I forgive the kitchen for sneaking dried fruit in to my breakfast unannounced.
M. Wells Dinette, MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Ave at 46th Ave., Long Island City, 718-786-1800
