Granola

I first discovered granola my senior year of high school. My mother would buy me a pound of vanilla granola at the grocery store, and I'd eagerly chow down on it, mixing it into containers of fruit-flavored Yoplait yogurt and feeling pleased with myself for snacking on such a "healthy" combination. Since then my tastes have changed slightly- now I don't like my granola to be so overwhelmingly sweet, and I eat it with Fage yogurt instead of Yoplait- but the basic combination is basically the same, albeit with about 30 less grams of sugar.

My best friend and I first made granola from scratch this summer, and since then I've refused to buy granola from the store. It's so much more delicious and cheap when it's home-made, not to mention it's so easy to make! The other great thing about making granola from scratch is that you can basically put in whatever you'd like. Don't like walnuts? Replace them with pecans. Not a big fan of honey? Try making it with maple syrup instead. Throw in a few handful of seeds, if you'd like. Add all your favorite dried fruits. You can even make it peanut-butter flavored, or make a nice, seasonal variety.

The recipe below is my variation of the one found here. I made a batch this past Thursday, but doubled it. Nine cups of granola may sound like a lot, but between one of my roommates and me, it's already almost gone. I guess that's what happens when you eat bowlfuls of it for breakfast three days in a row...

Granola

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (instant oats don't work nearly as well)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup chopped raw almonds (I use a mixture of raw chopped almonds & sliced almonds)

3/4 cup shredded coconut

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup honey (or you can substitute with maple syrup)

2 tablespoons canola oil

raisins and dried cranberries

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 300 F.

In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together.

In a separate bowl, mix the honey and oil together. Drizzle the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and mix it all together.

Spread onto a large, rimmed cookie sheet. Bake for about 30-35 minutes, stirring every 10 or 15 minutes, until it's golden brown. Be careful not to let it bake too long, or it'll easily burn. Remove from oven and let it cool completely. Enjoy!

For the Young Who Want To - Marge Piercy

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don't have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.'s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else's mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you're certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

---

This should be required reading for anyone who is a writer, or anyone pursuing any sort of creative field, really.

Variation on the Word Sleep- Margaret Atwood

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and as you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

or anything resembling it- Michael Palmer

The hills like burnt pages
Where does this door lead

Like burnt pages
Then we fall into something still called the sea

A mirrored door
And the hills covered with burnt pages

With words burned into the pages
The trees like musical instruments attempt to read

Here between idea and object
Otherwise a clear even completely clear winter day

Sometimes the least memorable lines will ring in your ears
The disappearing pages

Our bodies twisted into unnatural shapes
To exact maximize pleasure

From the view of what is in any case long gone and never was
A war might be playing itself out beyond the horizon

An argument over the future-past enacted in the present
Which is an invisible present

Neva streaming out by the casement
Piazza resculpted with bricolage

Which way will the tanks turn their guns
You ask a woman with whom you hope to make love

In this very apartment
Should time allow

What I would describe as a dark blue dress with silver threads
And an overturned lamp in the form of a swan

A cluster of birches represent negativity
Flakes of ash continue to descend

We offer a city with its name crossed out
To those who say we are burning the pages

The Sciences Sing a Lullaby- Albert Goldbarth

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you're tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They'll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren't alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren't alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.