Giada De Laurentiis’s go-to breakfast has been living rent-free in my head since 2016. I was interviewing her for a Facebook Live (remember those?), and I was struck by her Steve Jobs-ian approach to dining, admitting that she eats pretty much the same thing every day—brown rice or oatmeal with olive oil and salt.
"I like a starch or a grain in the morning. That's just how I like to start my day," she told me. "When I was growing up, my mom used to make farro, which is a cracked wheat, right, and she used to just make a pot of it, like people make oatmeal."
Her mom would then set out an array of savory toppings—olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh herbs and balsamic vinegar—letting her family customize their bowls as they saw fit. As she got older and her career took off, she found she was always on the road, and the farro or brown rice was swapped for oatmeal, because “it’s much easier to find in hotels.” As someone who often reached for yogurt or cereal in the mornings, her savory approach seemed novel. And yet, I never thought to make it myself, until recently, when I learned that another Food Network icon, Ina Garten, also has oatmeal for breakfast every morning (only hers features butter, a splash of milk and maple syrup). And that Jennifer Aniston swears by oats whipped with an egg white to power her through busy mornings. Clearly, I needed to give oatmeal another shot—and not those Maple and Brown Sugar instant packets I’d microwave up as a kid. With Giada’s words rattling in my brain, I headed to the grocery store
