Porridge

Americans don't tend to eat rice for breakfast, and we're missing out. Rice is one of the most ubiquitous ingredients around the world, and each country and culture consumes it in myriad ways every day—even multiples times a day in some places. For quite some time it seemed that the American culinary world mostly ignored the humble workhorse ingredient, but in recent years farmers have worked to bring back heritage varieties that had been lost to the ages and chefs are working to give the global staple its due in the restaurant world.

I always want bread for breakfast. My favorite breakfast bread is seedy and grainy, toasted, with butter. I’ll also take it in the form of bagels, pumpernickel preferred. However, there are also times when I feel like eating my morning bread with a spoon. That’s because Danish rye bread porridge exists.

It took three visits and several personal requests to the head cook at Kabul’s women-run Bost Restaurant to finally be served a piping hot, hard-to-get bowl of kachee, a kind of porridge made b

There’s no denying that a winning combo is tahini and miso. Nutty, salty, creamy. Like peanut butter and pretzels or salted almond butter on toast, but more refined. When I want that elevated flavor with a cozier edge, I mix it into thick porridge.