The significance of breakfast, and creating community over food....
We used up all of the Holiday Granola that I made in January, a while ago. Lately the granola jar in our cupboard has been empty. We are left with just store bought whole grain cereals with names like Mesa Flakes, in tupperware cereal containers. So it was time to try a new granola recipe, which I am going to rename, The Best Granola Ever. Once you make your own granola from scratch, dear readers, believe me, there is no going back. Any store bought granola is going to taste stale.
When I was in college, after living in a dorm for the first few years, I lived in an apartment for awhile. Leaving the dorm and upgrading to an apartment was a rite of passage on the road to growing up. It gave me the opportunity to organize what I thought of in my mind as banquet hall type breakfasts, for my friends, in my rented apartment kitchen. Eating in the school cafeteria, and storing food in a mini fridge in the dorm room frustrated my sense of community, that I felt was better created with friends seated around a long wood table in a real kitchen, the heart of any home.
I would invite my friends for a Saturday or Sunday morning brunch. Everyone would bring something to contribute to the table, like cheese, fruit, jams, breads, or pastries. There was always a lot of butter used, spread upon the bread. In fact, I baked my own bread during that period of time, too. Always some kind of a whole grain loaf. Tea would be served, with a choice of lemon wedges, or milk. I believe I was going through a big souffle phase at the time, and probably served a lot of them, along with fresh orange juice. At times, there would be bagels and lox with cream cheese. There was always fruit, most often summer berries, for dessert. Sometimes, one of my friends would bring his great Dane, which would sit on the floor, close to the table.
These were hot summer days. I chose to stay at school for the summer semester and knock off a couple of the more challenging courses, so that my winter course load would be lighter. The apartment was full of light through gauzy curtains. There was a screened in sun porch at the front. I awoke every morning, would put a record on the turn table. "Our House" would play in the background as I went to the porch to listen to the music melded with the songs of the morning birds, and bathe in the early morning light. I would look outside through the porch screens, peering through the leafy green canopies of the street trees, and think about the dawning day and how it would be spent.
I would organize these breakfasts, and I got the feeling that everyone was thankful to be there, loved the camaraderie, and perhaps thought I was a bit peculiar to be driven to do what I was doing. Why was breakfast, this feast with friends, this pause in starting the day so important to me? All I know is that it felt so good to be surrounded by my friends, to enjoy the back and forth of the sort of intellectual conversations that being twenty years old and living in an academic environment provided. And there was playing. We would go to a secret water hole, jump in with our clothes on, and swim, and paddle about in the water, and then sun on the rocks. It was the summer I learned how to drive a stick shift car. That was a long time ago, and I have lost my stick shift skills since then, proven by my burning out a car engine during a trip through Provence, France, in more recent years.
Do you even eat breakfast, dear reader? Lots of us don't, you know. And recently the whole thing of the importance of eating breakfast was debunked as a campaign by the cereal companies to get us to eat more cereal. Of course that debunking could be one of those urban myths. What is even true anymore? I think after college I went through a phase of not eating breakfast in order to save calories, and keep my weight down. It usually never works, as one eventually succumbs to a bagel or muffin to tide one over. So many coffee carts on so many corners, in a NYC working world morning.
And then there are people who consistently eat the same thing for breakfast, everyday. My younger brother Robert is one of those. As long as he has a box of cereal, Cheerios being his favorite, and some milk for his morning bowl, he is good to go. There are people who eat only hard boiled eggs, for the protein. Vegetable bowls for breakfast are now in vogue. Amazing that it previously never occurred to us, in America, to eat vegetables with our morning meal. Chia seed oatmeal bowls had been in vogue before this, but have faded a bit from fashion. The wheel of choice keeps turning. We eat our suppers in the evenings, sleep all night, and then break our fast with breakfast.
I don't consider granola a strictly breakfast food, although some of us do consistently eat it for breakfast with some yogurt, and sliced fruit. A little granola goes a long way. There are usually a good amount of calories to just a quarter of a cup. So good to extend it with other food items to make the granola breakfast meal more satisfying. We, of the super size me American meals, are not used to such small portions.
I like to think of granola as an any time food and often eat it as a snack, and yes, I am of the granola with yogurt and fruit, type of person. As for me, this recipe is a keeper. I love the large coconut flakes, and luckily they sell bags of them at our Park Slope food coop. I like that this recipe uses healthy omega friendly ingredients including the olive oil and nuts. It is a very simple recipe. No gummy dried fruit to stick to your teeth as you eat it. This recipe has just the right amount of sweetness, with a counter note of salt coming through a bit, and a pleasing toasted crunchiness.
When my husband Dan tried his first bowl of this Best Granola Ever, after it had cooled on the baking pans, he exclaimed that it tasted as good as cookies. Do try this granola recipe, dear reader, and do let me know if you agree that this is The Best Granola Ever. But first, the words of one of my favorite songs to set the mood for your granola making.
Our House,
written by Graham Nash
performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
I'll light the fire
You place the flowers in the vase
That you bought today
Staring at the fire
For hours and hours
While I listen to you
Play your love songs
All night long for me
Only for me
Come to me now
And rest your head for just five minutes
Everything is good
Such a cosy room
The windows are illuminated
By the evening sunshine through them
Fiery gems for you
Only for you
Our house is a very, very, very fine house
With two cats in the yard
Life used to be so hard
Now everything is easy
'Cause of you
And our la,la,la, la,la etc
Our house, is a very, very, very fine house
With two cats in the yard,
Life used to be so hard
Now everything is easy
'Cause of you
And our
I'll light the fire
While you place the flowers in the vase
That you bought today
The Best Granola Ever
Ingredients
- 600 grams 6 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
- 100 to 150 grams about 2 to 3 loose cups unsweetened coconut chips
- 400 grams nuts maybe 3 to 4 cups, coarsely chopped
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 cup 240 ml maple syrup, preferably Grade B
- ⅔ cup 160 ml olive oil
Instructions
-
Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven, and preheat to 300. Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment.
-
Measure the dry ingredients into a large bowl, and stir well. Add the maple syrup and olive oil, and stir to evenly coat. Divide the mixture between the two prepared sheet pans, spread it out, and bake, stirring the granola and flipping the pans once or twice, until golden brown, about 40 minutes. I generally check on the granola every 15 minutes as it's baking, and I gauge its doneness by color; in particular, I'm looking for the coconut chips to toast and for the whole mixture to achieve nice, even browning.
-
Allow to cool completely, then transfer the granola to airtight containers. Eat with plain yogurt (my favorite), milk, or on its own. You can store it at room temperature for a couple of weeks, easy, but if you use it more slowly than that, consider freezing some of it.
