Otherwise known as, We Interrupt The Last Hour Of Your Friday Workday… for the following random fun collected from around the interweb! As you know by now, I’m a bit off-the-wall, so I hope you’ll also enjoy these little tidbits ‘cause they certainly brightened my day.

First up, we take a short drive down to Providence, Rhode Island where Chef Walter Potenza, a longtime friend of Oldways, has added Culinary Arts Teacher to his long list of accomplishments. In addition to owning Walter’s Ristorante d’Italia, Chef Walter has hosted cooking classes for over14 years in both Italy and in a cooking “academy” housed in the same building as his prestigious Federal Hill restaurant. This new venture finds him instructing high school students at the Providence Career and Technical High School’s Four Seasons Café. Unlike the Home Ec classes that many of us remember from middle or high school, these students choose their majors during Freshman year, follow a curriculum developed by the National Restaurant Association, are driven by career aspirations that open to them immediately after graduating, and may even transfer credits to culinary academies like Johnson & Wales University. Be sure to watch the video that accompanies the story linked above, for a behind the scenes look at the Four Seasons Café (and some great quotes from Chef Walter, of course).

We continue our drive down the coast to stop in Washington, D.C., where oatmeal is popping up on menus in some atypical venues. Maybe D.C. restaurateurs were motivated by our promotion of oatmeal as January’s Grain of the Month, or maybe they’ve realized how many fantastic health benefits they can serve to their customers while serving this great grain. Whatever the reason, it’s great to hear that McDonald’s and Caribou Coffee are adding oatmeal to their other breakfast items. I couldn’t find any information on the McDonald’s page on this new offering, which leads me to believe they’re testing the market response, so if you’ve tried their oatmeal please leave a comment on this post and let us know how it was!  Caribou Coffee’s new handcrafted oatmeal comes in two varieties, Regular or 7 Grain, and you can order it in five different flavors like Cranberry Orange and Very Berry. It’s great that the newest addition to our list of Chain Restaurants serving whole grains is rockin’ the hot oat breakfasts! Speaking of our list of Chain Restaurants serving whole grains, The Washington Post Express Night Out article also mentions oat offerings from The Cereal Bowl and Starbucks, who have offered whole grain options for close to two years now.

Finally, we fly up to Canada (you remembered your passport, right?) for a news story that echoes our post from a few months ago about the beauty of real bread. I don’t covet much in this world, but I would be so thrilled to get a knock on my door and find Comber, Ontario farmer Richard Thibert delivering loaves of his stone ground multi-grain bread! According to this story in The Windsor Star, the Thibert farm not only grows its own hard red winter wheat and soft white winter wheat to turn into tasty breads and mixes, they also mill their grains and bake everything on-site. Fan-freakin’-tastic!

Have a great weekend!  (Kara)