Maybe it’s all the California inside me, maybe it’s my hunter-gatherer tendencies shining through, maybe it’s the association I’ve given it to my father – I can’t rightly say. All I know is that I find my true love in a palm full of granola. I always have.
Ideally, I seek out the following qualities in this whenever-food: a dry-crispness to the oats, which is absolutely not a mark of boring flatness but slow-roasted freshness. It's the slow-roasting that offers the comforting depth that granola should have. Under-sweetness and more-than-expected sea-saltiness are essential. I’ve found using a combination of molasses, buckwheat honey, and maple syrup together, each very moderately, creates yet another dimension, giving the granola that mysterious appeal that keeps everyone poking like pigeons for more. And it’s a treasure hunt. My treats are deeply toasty pecans, walnuts, pepitas, and thick flakes of coconut. The object, as far as ratios are concerned, is to have just enough treasures so that it’s not too hard to find them but it’s still exciting when you do. The final and most important note – a little butter never hurt anybody. Never forget that.
As far as fruit is concerned, I like to leave that up to the eater. My granola serves as a blank canvas and welcomes additions of raisins, currants or banana slices – anything at all. Lately, though, I’ve been giving bee pollen and a sprinkling of cacao nibs a whirl.
Toot, toot. All aboard the granola train.
Toot, toot. All aboard the granola train.
That is the BEST granola this side of the MISSISSIPPI! I look forward to eating much more of it!
ReplyDeleteLooks and sound delicious!
ReplyDeleteYella, do you remember jeremy ashkenas? he was one of my best friends at MA (and still is) and his dad is a granola making fiend. We once took a four day skateboarding-themed road trip up the coast to oregon that was powered almost entirely by a 5 pound bag of Tom ashkenas's finest granola goodness (and lots of soy milk, of course). My mom tells me that Tom is now making a business of it and selling at the berkeley farmers' market.
Here's to granola!