Toooootally Baked

My granola, that is. Yep, I'm just one step away from throwing on a batik sarong, renewing my subscription to Mother Jones, and getting in on the nearest drum circle I can find.

Granola gets a bad rap, I think. It's a word used to describe the more liberal, earth-lovin' folk, but I just think it's crunchy and tasty with yogurt or as cereal. I plan on breakfastin' it up with this granola in the morning, accompanied by sliced banana and milk.

The recipe I used is great, but it didn't result in big clusters of granola, which you might find in the $5 bags at Whole Foods and other places. It's still crunchy, just separated instead of chunky. I think a lot of granola recipes call for butter and this one uses oil instead. Often granola is considered a "health food" but when you examine the nutrition info on commercial granola, you'll see a fat gram count that is sooooooo far out, man.

In other baking-related news, last weekend Scott and I attended an event at Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum, an incredible place that shows that B-more really is the hometown of John Waters! Quirky, fantastic, colorful art abounds in a series of buildings, one of which has an exterior encrusted with shiny, glittery mirror shards. With a big golden hand coming out of it.

We attended a demo on crepe making, planted some tomato seeds to take home, sampled some Takahara Brothers Ice Cream (I tried salty caramel - yum!) and the best part - for me, at least - was the pretzel making session. The event organizers underestimated the crowd, as some latecomers were turned away and the mass of pretzel fans made the few toaster ovens available kind of a joke. Luckily those in charge found a convection oven on site and piled everyone's pretzels on one pan to bake. (I'm no fan of toaster ovens anyway...we have one here at home and I wish we had just a regular two-slot toaster that toasts both sides of the bread, damn it. You can sense I have toaster issues.)

Here's proof of our pretzels: I made two medium-sized pretzels while Scott went all arty in the spirit of the day and showed some love to his new city of employment.

One of the organizers said the dough is a mix of yeast, water, flour, salt and sugar - very similar to this recipe. I wasn't aware the pretzels are boiled or rinsed in hot water midway during the baking process.

Gotta go... 30 Rock is on and I'm a Tina Fey Admiration Society member.