May 27 2002, 09:19 AM I Could Use It to Pick Up BBC World, Too

When I was young, one of the more fascinating things that sat in my (parent's) kitchen was a large stainless steel mixing bowl. It was entirely too large, indeed: it would have made for a very competent dog bed, if we had had a dog, and it had liked to sleep in large stainless steel bowls. It rested upside-down on top of the refrigerator, protecting smaller cousins from dust and other bits of stuff flung up from cooking. It was used almost exclusively to mix up large batches of granola.

I have begun to play with granola, and I need one of these now, it is clear to me. I have mixing bowls, and I thought they were large. More to the point, I thought they were large enough. They are not.

Granola is simple:

Granola

Mix in the biggest bowl you've got:

• 4 cups of rolled (not instant!) oats
• 1 cup of (untoasted) wheat germ
• 2 cups untoasted slivered almonds
• a scant 1/2 cup brown sugar
• nutmeg and cinnamon to taste (I use a scant tsp. each)

In something else, mix together:

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 4-6 ounces of honey
• A little vanilla extract, maybe

Work the wet stuff into the dry stuff. Use your hands (clean 'em first). Try to get it vaguely consistent. Spread it out on edged pans (rimmed cookie sheets, or jelly roll pans), and toast in a 250 degree (Fahrenheit) oven for 60-75 minutes, stirring every quarter hour or so, until toasty and brown. Let cool, stirring occasionally to break up chunks.

Some notes: all of the above is tweakable, and scales as far as one has time for the toasting step. Maple syrup can be used instead of honey; less sugars can be used entirely. Other nuts can be added or taken away; all manner of seeds (sunflower, sesame, pumpkin) can be made part of this. Other grains can be added: wheat berries in various stages of undress. Powdered cardamom can be added, or not. Some batches can be toasted a little longer, and it won't matter. It's pretty forgiving stuff. The trick is to have a sufficient amount of rolled (not instant!) oats around for everything else to rest with. Also, 'slivered' is a damn fine word.

Trying the above experiment will give up the first reason for the big bowl; during the mixing stage, the stuff got all over the counter. One has to be careful. Or get a bigger bowl.

The other reason is that the stuff shrinks when it is toasted, so the glorious shaggy heap of untoasted granola begets a paltry (well, in comparison) amount of said when it finally goes into the bin in the pantry (in truth, I must also admit that a fair amount of nibbling goes on, and that always leads to more lossage than can be held in the mind). Since this stuff burns up an entire day anyway (pleasantly, too be sure - like bread or soup, it does not demand sustained attention) one might as well make an unsettling amount of it (it stores well in the fridge - we keep it in the pantry 'cause we eat it up quick). Sadly, to get an unsettling amount of finished granola, one must make two unsettling amounts of the raw stuff.

I need a bigger bowl.