The Great American Granola Exchange Has Begun

Three recipes from esteemed participants: Stella Bugbee, Fanny Singer, and Alexis deBoschnek.

The granola sharing has begun! I am uplifted by every one of your posts about the process, your granola recipes, and photos of care packages, outward bound.

Last night I met up with my brilliant friend, Alex Raij, at an industry event at Eel Bar. The food was exceptional, as per usual, but the culinary highlight for me was the deli container of granola that Alex brought for me, surplus from the batch she had made for the Great American Granola Exchange. I snacked on it as I crossed the Williamsburg Bridge, two martinis deep, vowing to save some for my kids with each additional handful. It’s just granola, but I gotta say, it felt like love.

Today, I am sharing three recipes from women who really don’t have time to bake and send granola to strangers, but they are doing it anyway — New York Times Style Editor Stella Bugbee, Permanent Collection and The Green Spoon’s Fanny Singer, and cookbook author and Substacker, Alexis DeBoschnek.

Keep baking, keep sharing on social, and send me any photos you have of the packages as they arrive. It’s a welcome distraction from, well, everything else.

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New York Times Style Editor Stella Bugbee

Stella Bugbee is the Styles Editor at The New York Times and the former Editor-in-Chief and President of The Cut, New York magazine's fashion and lifestyle publication. It’s all very “la-di-daaaah,” as my Nana used to say, but if you follow her on Instagram, you will see that Stella’s posts feature the things she eats in Paris, as much as the clothes she sees on the runway. And, she has three kids. Three! Anyone who survives raising more than two children is an anthropological phenomenon in my eyes, so that’s reason enough to fête Stella here.

It’s personally affirming for me to hear that Bugbee, the grand arbiter of taste, “for some reason, always has at least a cup of leftover quinoa in the fridge.” As a result, she tells me, “I add it to my easy granola for protein, which I’m told I need now that I am…old.” Relatable! I have to admit, even I don’t love a big bowl of fluffy cooked quinoa on its own, but I treat it as it a value-add ingredient. I fold it in with rice, sneak it into oatmeal, and now, as per Stella’s instruction, I will toss it into my granola for extra crunch and texture.

* Note the quinoa needs to be dry before mixing it with the ingredients so that your granola crisps and doesn’t steam. Stella recommends you spread it out on a baking sheet out and leave it on the counter all day before baking.

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The

The Green Spoon

’s Fanny Singer

It’s no wonder that the daughter of chef, food writer, and activist Alice Waters has dedicated herself to feeding her own family homemade, delicious, virtuous food. Beyond her work at the helm of Permanent Collection, Fanny publishes kid-friendly recipes in the newsletter she co-authors with Greta Caruso, The Green Spoon. What’s more, the newsletter riffs on New York Magazine’s, Grub Street Diet, with the “Cub Street Diet,” a series that chronicles a day in the life of a woman of interest as she feeds her kids (mine is coming soon).

Fanny and I are part of the same New York and Los Angeles based Mom’s WhatsApp groups (these threads can solve anything from where to get the best facial to the most accurate source for air quality measurements), so I know that we share priorities when it comes to feeding our kids. She told me, “developing this granola, I wanted to keep the sugar content way down and ramp up protein and fiber content as much as possible — we minimized the oats in favor of a bunch of delicious, crunchy, and savory seeds, nuts, and grains.”

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Author Alexis DeBoschnek

Alexis deBoschnek is a recipe developer, cookbook author, and culinary content creator based in the Catskills, New York. She is known for her approachable, sustainability conscious cooking, and is a fellow obsessive when it comes to avoiding waste in the kitchen. When she’s not developing recipes behind the scenes, you can find DeBoschnek cooking on her Instagram, or in her YouTube series,"Chef Out of Water,"where she prepared meals using unconventional appliances like coffee makers and irons. She makes it all look easy, and not for nothing, the woman has an electric smile.

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Stella Bugbee’s Quinola

(Yields about 24 ounces)

“I like to taste dried fruit in every bite, and I love the way the green raisins look with the pistachios. I use Afghani raisins because they’re firm and candy-like. I also tried this recipe with dried apricots instead of raisins, less sweet but also pretty and tasty. You can get all of these ingredients on Nuts.com.

Side note: When I was buying the green raisins, I picked up a tub of dried, tart red cherries. I planned to try them in some granola, but the shopkeeper told me to soak them for a few days in vodka, then eat them and drink the vodka. A really good tip that has nothing to do with this recipe, but a gift nonetheless!”