State of Mind, State of Body

Many years ago I competed in triathlons, and one race always sticks out in my mind. Actually, it's one moment from one race. I was on the bike leg, which for me was always my strongest. As I was riding along and happily gaining ground on all the folks who were stronger swimmers, another woman came up alongside and said, "Hey, nice bike." We chatted for half a minute about the finer points of Cannondale bikes, and then she sped off. When I looked down at her calf muscle and saw the permanent pen markings that indicated her age, I read five zero, fifteen years my senior! Humbled? Yes. Impressed? Very much so.

I have long been drawn to older, fit folks. If you've been a longtime reader of my blog, you might remember when I wrote about George Garside and the Auckland Cycle Touring Association. This was a group of incredibly fit 60, 70, and 80 year old men I was privileged to ride with once, and the experience definitely left its mark. These men took their fitness seriously, and their youthful faces illustrated the benefits.

This past fall I came back to the sport of rowing. I learned it in college, pursued it for one short season right before getting pregnant with our daughter, and then struggled to find a way to raise kids, work, and fit in time on the water. Rowing requires a lot of time, something that the empty nest and unemployment has afforded me. By luck, I stumbled into a group of mostly women who have been rowing together for years. These are some incredibly fit women. When I first met them, I had no idea just how wide the age range was, but as I started to get to know them and began hearing some talk of their grand kids -- well, the math indicated that once again I was being schooled by women who had a good fifteen years on me. And once again, I was both humbled and impressed. These women have an inspiring youthfulness that is both external and internal. And while I think of myself as always doing the looking up, perhaps, just maybe, one day someone will do the looking up to me. That would be nice.

It's January, and this always seems to bring an uptick in people's desire to eat and drink healthfully, so I will bypass sweet baked goods and alcoholic beverages and pass along a granola recipe I recently came to love. Let me just say that oats and I have not always gotten along. When I was a kid at camp in Vermont, I always detested the mornings when I came down to the dining hall to discover hot oatmeal in our breakfast bowls. Oatmeal cookies? A waste of time and good sugar. In its crunchier form, granola was a little more appealing, but just a little. Then I started backpacking with my husband, and one morning I was just hungry enough to start to see an ounce of good in my cup of instant oatmeal. The progression was slow, but eventually mornings came when I actually reached for oatmeal at home. And I learned that when you add chocolate chips to oatmeal cookies, they can be quite delicious. Liking granola extended from the discovery that I love muesli, and for years I was quite content to make a recipe from a well-worn Jane Brody cookbook. Then came the New York Times Cooking website.

Some days I just open it up to look at the pictures and gain inspiration. It was on such an occasion that I learned about a restaurant in Manhattan called Eleven Madison Park where diners receive a little container of homemade granola after their dinner for the next morning's breakfast. Ingenious! The recipe, adapted from the restaurant's, was a dismal failure. But the bones of the recipe seemed sound, so I did some tweaking and came up with one that I find delicious -- with milk, on yogurt, or however one chooses to eat granola. Happy New Year. Enjoy!

Granola (adapted from The New York Times who adapted from Eleven Madison Park)
3 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup unsweetened flaked coconut (I use Bob's Red Mill)
1 cup slivered almonds
1/3 cup pistachios (lightly salted are fine)
1/3 cup unsalted pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup each: olive oil, brown sugar, and maple syrup
1 cup dried sour cherries

Preheat oven to 300.
In a mixing bowl combine the oats, coconut, almonds, pistachios, and pumpkin seeds. Do NOT add the cherries yet!
On the stove, heat up the olive oil, brown sugar, and maple sugar in a small pan until the brown sugar dissolves. This doesn't take long. Slowly pour this mixture over the oats mixture and mix well.
Spread the oats on a sheet pan and bake for about 25 minutes. I typically leave it untouched for the first half, and then check regularly during the second half so that it doesn't get too browned. I also mix up the granola every 5 minutes or so during the second half.
Once cooked, put the granola in a bowl and add the cherries. Mix well. The heat of the granola will soften the cherries just a bit but won't turn them into filling pullers for your teeth!