Tall Tales: Mark Bittman's Granola
I love to read and to tell stories. When I was little, I spent a lot of time at the library or in my room reading. Muth soon realized that sending me to my room was like throwing Brer Rabbit into the briar patch. "Roast me! Hang me! Do whatever you please, only please, please don't throw me into the briar patch." I don't remember being particularly imaginative (that was Ginny's department—I ate breakfast with Tina Braska, her her imaginary friend, for several years) but I did enjoy a good story.
Five years ago I decided to gather all the recipes from my past into a book for a family Christmas present. I added a few stories along the way to set the stage and give a framework for the food. I labored for months smoothing out crumpled, food-stained scraps of paper, typing on a tiny VIAO notebook, and eventually sent the long file off to Kinko's to be printed and comb-bound. It was a thrill to see all that work become a tangible object and I was reluctant to let the project end. Ron, my brother-in-law, suggested that I write a blog so that the story-telling could continue.
Blogging has become so integrated into my life that even while an event is still happening , it is blog fodder. Yesterday I flew from Seattle to Duluth to continue life as a vagabond. My progress skipped right along until my commuter flight from Minneapolis to Duluth dug in its' heels. Boarding time came and went, the cleaning crew rumbled their carts in and out, maintenance men in coveralls gathered around the counter chatting and laughing with the flight crew, but no information was passed on. Fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, finally after verbal pressure from those of us waiting, an amiable uniformed man announced that there was a "maintenance issue." Never a good sign. Twenty more minutes—"We're trying to get dispatch to give us a new plane."
Not wanting to spend the night on one of the readily available MSP mattresses, I bailed and took a ground shuttle. Four hours later, I rolled into Duluth—safe, sound and grumpy, but distinctly bagless. (I know, I should never check a bag, but I hate the miles-long drag through the Minneapolis airport.) Arriving without my bag required driving through a blizzard to the Duluth airport to retrieve said bag. Now I'm not pointing a finger or calling names, but how many slack-jawed workers does it take to run a small airport? Sorry Delta, but really.
As I was leaving the parking lot (after dragging the suitcase down a flight of stairs, one elevator, an indoor parking lot, a covered concrete tunnel, a corrugated "passenger walk-way", and a long snow-covered side road) I was already writing the story, adding each hair pulling detail and each uncooperative agent, wringing every drop of pathos from the experience. I realized then that, drama aside, the bottom line is: I flew to Duluth yesterday and picked up my bag today. But what fun is that?
I've become accustomed to embellishing routine events. Truth can be told by either the short version or the long version—apparently, I prefer the long.
I made granola today: such a satisfying result for a minimal effort. I didn't have enough oats, or nuts, no vanilla or sunflower seeds but it doesn't seem to matter what's on hand—it still tastes crunchy and delicious. Here's Mark Bittman's boilerplate, but feel free to eliminate or substitute.
Mark Bittman's Granola
- 5 cups rolled oats (not quick-cooking or instant) or other rolled grains (i.e., wheat, rye)
- 3 cups mixed nuts and seeds (i.e., sunflower seeds, chopped walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, and sesame seeds)
- 1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon, or other spices to taste (i.e., cardamom, allspice, coriander, nutmeg, ginger)
- 1/2 to 1 cup honey, agave, or maple syrup
- salt
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 to 1 1/2 cups raisins or dried fruit (i.e., dates, cranberries, cherries, blueberries, apricots, pineapple, crystallized ginger, or banana chips)**
Heat oven to 300 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the oats, nuts and seeds, coconut, sweetener, and vanilla; sprinkle with salt. Spread the mixture on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes stirring occasionally, then 15 minutes more at 250 degrees. The granola should brown evenly; the darker it gets without burning, the crunchier it will be.
Remove pan from oven and add raisins or dried fruit**. Cool on a rack, stirring now and then until granola reaches room temperature. Put in a sealed container and store in the refrigerator; it will keep indefinitely.
**I skip the dried fruit, it eventually gets hard. Much better, I think, to add it to order.An Ice Age update
Posted by Marla Nichols at 1/24/2011 2:26 PM 
Categories: Celebrity Chefs, Breakfast, American
Tags: MSP Duluth Brer Rabbit VIAO Kinko Mark Bittman granola
Categories: Celebrity Chefs, Breakfast, American
Tags: MSP Duluth Brer Rabbit VIAO Kinko Mark Bittman granola
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