CRUNCHY GRANOLA RECIPE AND WRITING BOOKS

       I’m sitting here eating crunchy granola, really, and thinking about my writing life. Over the years, I’ve written news articles, grant proposals, lots of letters. During our early days I wrote articles for education magazines and city newspapers – how to build a nature trail, country advice on how to get rid of warts (!). The writing, though, that makes me feel like a real writer has been fiction.

       Mmm this stuff is good, easy to make and tasty even after all these years of using that recipe (see below). As for books,  I had a lot of fun writing the little memoir of our early days living in the country described in A Homestead Decade, HowCrunchy Granola Changed My Life, (I hope you enjoyed it, Amazon, cheap, $2.99).

       Those sweet homestead years were one small moment in a lush life. I also had the honor to work some very interesting and meaningful jobs – child abuse prevention, kinship care, and coordinating collaboration projects with community human service agencies. Some of the haunting experiences from those jobs have dragged the mind of this writer through a maze of characters and events. As a result I wrote a softcover book, A Kinship Guide to Rescuing Children for Grandparents and Other Relatives As Parents.

       After leaving community services to enter the next great adventure of this life, I found a pressing desire to go back to the satisfaction of writing fiction (not the vampire kind). First up - another book, a short fiction, just published on Amazon’s Kindle: …NOW AM FOUND, a road trip of sorts about a woman and a boy surviving the first weeks after a murder/suicide in the family. The story is not morose. Instead a bond of love and humor thread through the characters until the epiphany that life does go on for survivors even after tragedy.

       If you decide to read … NOW AM FOUND, I greatly appreciate any comments or review you may have on Amazon (particularly if you like it – I have a fragile ego).  You might even enjoy a bowl of your freshly made Crunchy Granola while you are reading. How’s that for a perk? Here’s the recipe from A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life. Enjoy!!

Helene’s Crunchy Granola

       In a big bowl mix 8 cups of quick rolled oats with a few tablespoons of other healthy grains – wheat bran, ground flax seeds, wheat germ. These add a nice protein boost. Never add bulgur, it turns into iron stones during the baking. You may want to add shelled sunflower seeds or other chopped nuts to your liking. I like quick oats because it crisps up nicely and soaks up milk easily. Set the bowl aside.

       Get a suitable baking pan. These days I use my old cast iron fryer. We used to use a blue enameled roaster when we had the children home. Increase proportions of ingredients to fit your pan size.
Get the oven ready at 250 degrees. Crunchy Granola is more toasted than baked.

       Lightly heat the pan over a burner then pour enough oil to cover ¼ inch deep on the surface. I use olive oil (for almost everything), other oils, I hear, make a nice crispy coat on the grains.

       Add about 3 tablespoons of honey, a tablespoon of black molasses, a teaspoon of vanilla. You can add or substitute other sweeteners at this point, such as maple syrup.

       As the oil mixture heats and starts to bubble, stir the wet ingredients, then slowly add the dry ingredients stirring to coat all the grains. Turn off the heat and continue to stir until the grains are coated with the sweetened oil.

       Put the pan in the low heat oven to toast the granola for about 30 minutes. Carefully stir the mixture a couple of times during the toasting process.

Let cool. And enjoy! Store the granola in glass jars.

Thanks for stopping by.

Helene (author of above linked books)

Kindle, I-Pad, the New Books - READ!

        Today I read that in 2006 there were 7,000 published e-books and in 2011 there were 87,000 authors publishing their own e-books. Wow. The technology of book publishing for the e-reader has democratized the anxious need to tell a story. Authors no longer have to wait months on end for a word, encouraging or devastating, from a big publishing house where busy “readers” plow through endless manuscripts in the “slush pile”. When the word is rejecting, the author tries another publishing house and waits again for months in the same game. Theodore Geisel, Dr. Seuss, reportedly endured 27 rejections before his wildly wonderful To Think That It Happened on Mulberry Street was finally accepted. The first criteria of acceptance by the big publishers has been money; how much of the market share will a book provide? But most writers just want to share an instruction or tell a good story.

Those who were brave enough, or financially able to by-pass the publisher and print their own book had to also endure the public stigma of not passing the literary judgment of the big houses indicating the work is not really worthy reading. The century old power of the publishing industry controlled the market for stories until this fantastic digital revolution.

          We are humans, after all, and telling stories is as much a part of us as preparing a meal. As we get older we have a big collection of stories including favorites that we like to tell as often as possible, or so my kids tell me. Not all of us write our story, however, which reaches a wider audience and gives a sense of permanency.

       The e-book format not only allows a much greater number of authors the opportunity to share their work, but readers experience a much easier way to read more stories (or personally reject undesirable work instead of depending on a distant editor). The e-book is cheaper to publish and should be cheaper to read, though some publishers still grip e-book sales with higher prices. The books are environmentally friendly, no trees are sacrificed, much less oil is consumed in delivery, and storage/discard is minimal. The reading itself can be managed to the comfort of tired eyes. Both publishing and purchasing are incredibly fast. Literally speaking, we are living in exciting times.

       I published AHomestead Decade, How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life based on  encouragement from those who listened to our “back-to-the-land” stories. We chose the e-book format because producing was made easy by Kindle Direct Publishing, we could keep the price low ($2.99), and readers could get the book instantly through Amazon. So far we are very satisfied. We do have some folks who want a printed copy and we are working on that, which has also been easier through the new publishing of print on demand.

            If you haven’t had a chance to read the Crunchy Granola book please check out a sample copy for free at Amazon.com. You can read any of the e-books on a great electronic reader like Kindle or on most tablets, cell phones, computers, one friend even read hers on a tiny little MP3 player. My, my. I appreciate all the reviews and personal comments. Thanks for sharing and don’t forget to eat your granola.

Love,

Helene