A day to be thankful for

Photo by Madison Oren on Unsplash

 

At the heart of celebration is a kind of mathematical paradox: the more we share joy, the more it grows. The implication of this is that we should manage joy in the exact opposite way that we manage money. We should spend it all, at every chance we get. What celebration does, with music and fireworks, giant balloons and glitter, is broadcast our joy far and wide so that others can join in. Because the more generous we are with our joy, the more we have for ourselves.

Ingrid Fetell Lee, Joyful (2018)

 

Yesterday was an awesome day, from start to finish. The hard rain overnight cleared out in the morning, just in time for me to run to the MHS track and do a virtual turkey trot. A few laps in, a magnificent hawk swooped in and perched on the fence at the south end of the track, and then watched over me as I circled the track. I felt lighter, like I was taking flight myself, every time I glimpsed the raptor upon completing another circuit. I ended up running my fastest 5K time in six years.

 

The right Mou for the job, episode II: We are the champions!

Back in July, I speculated that AS Roma's splashy new managerial signing, the legendary José Mourinho, would bring some stultifying soccer to our beloved club. Well, he did that, to some extent, but he also just delivered the first major European trophy in our 95-year history. That's right, we are the winners of the inaugural UEFA Europa Conference League, making us champions in Europe if not of Europe. Woohoo! Enjoy all of the many highlights from yesterday's slender 1-0 win over a puny Dutch team:

 

 

 

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The right Mou for the job

Ever since our beloved AS Roma shocked the soccer world by hiring José Mourinho—the self-anointed "Special One"—to be their next coach, Brad, Dylan, and I have agonized over the choice. On the one hand, he's one of the most successful football managers ever, having won multiple trophies, including the Champions League with two different teams, one of them the treble-winning Inter Milan during his first stint in Italy. On the other hand, he's achieved that success largely by developing a bunker mentality amongst his players and playing a defensive brand of football ("parking the bus") that is not the least bit pleasing to the eye. But here, based on his response to the question of what is his favorite music, we have definitive proof that Roma has found the right man for the job:

 

 

 

Daje, José, you're now the Boss, too!

 

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Tinkerman, episode I

Thanks to my OCD, tinkering with recipes is part of my DNA. For example, I swore my fourth banana bread would be my last, but then I cheated and tinkered some more and produced the Last Banana Bread 2.0. Even then, I tried another change or two, which led Brad to comment that I need to stop tinkering and be happy with it.[1]

Of course, that's what they said about Claudio Ranieri, romano and romanista. Mister Ranieri may not have won anything during his two stints coaching our (and his) beloved AS Roma, despite coming within a whisker, but no die-hard Roma fan will ever forget his tears flowing in the middle of his last game at the helm in May 2019, when the fans unfurled a banner honoring his service to the club in its time of need. Mister Ranieri has been derided throughout his coaching career with the nickname "Tinkerman," referring to his habit of rotating his squad and changing formations so often that he rarely puts out the same team two games in a row. José Mourinho, the enemy of modern attacking football,[2] was especially hard on Mister Ranieri. But then the Tinkerman "masterminded one of football's greatest ever achievements," Leicester City's 5000-to-1 run to the Premier League title in the 2015-2016 season, proving that tinkering is not necessarily a losing strategy.

I certainly haven't produced anything to rival Mister Ranieri's achievement, but I'll keep tinkering anyway. Most of the changes I make are small things that I don't even call attention to when tweaking a recipe, like allowing for more salt when cooking pasta or mixing cheese with cornstarch before adding it to a hot dish to keep it from clumping up. But if the changes seem substantial enough, or if it's essentially a new recipe, then I write it up that way and post it separately, like Hummus 2.1 and Granola 2.0, which are two of the most viewed recipes on UaKS.[3]

WAHOOWA

One of the most welcome, but entirely unexpected, developments in my relationship with Mom has been the emergence over the past few years of her fanatacism for UVA basketball. For the first 30 years or so of our relationship, Mom tolerated my love for sports, but would never voluntarily watch a game with me, unless a back rub was involved. And if AS Roma or the Italian national team were playing, forget it: Mom would hide until the yelling, pacing, hand wringing, and/or teeth gnashing were over.

But in the last few years Mom has become a die-hard UVA basketball fan, never missing a single minute of a single game. And she frets over the games just as much as I do, cheering with every made basket and offering her opinions as to who should be playing and how much. It doesn't mean Mom will watch a soccer or, heaven forbid, a baseball game with me, but watching UVA basketball is now something else we can do together 35 to 40 times a year. In the process, Mom has finally discovered, better late than never, the bonding experience that I've enjoyed, first with my Dad and Uncle Bob and then with Dylan and Brad, for most of my life. (Now if we can just get Cassie on board.)

And last night we got to enjoy together the ultimate experience every fan dreams of, but gets to celebrate so infrequently (unless you're a Patriots fan): winning a championship. After last year's lowest of the low, the UVA basketball team ended this year with the highest of the high, bringing home to C'ville our first National Championship. They nearly gave us a heart attack in doing it, needing a clutch shot in the last 14 seconds or less of regulation time in each of the last three games, but it will make for that much sweeter memories now that we've survived all the drama. And that's part of the beauty of sports—reliving the memorable moments, good and bad, with your fellow fanatics. Welcome to the party, Mom!

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Years from now, I doubt we'll be talking about what we ate for our "pre-game" meal the night Virginia won it all, but for the record it was Garlicky Cannellini with Artichokes. This dish has a flavor profile very similar to the White Bean Stew with Garlic and Parsley, but I like the addition of some artichokes and it's even more of a snap to throw together. It makes for a quick and easy light supper combined with a side salad.

Cannellini with Artichokes

Adapted from Deb Perelman at Smitten Kitchen

Time: 22 minutes

3 tablespoons (40 grams) extra-virgin olive oil
4 medium garlic cloves, peeled and sliced thin
a pinch or two of crushed red pepper flakes
4 slices of hearty bread, optional
1 (15-ounce) can of Cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
kosher salt
half of 1 (14-ounce) can of artichoke hearts in water (4 or 5 hearts; ~120 grams drained), drained and chopped (substitute jarred artichoke hearts in marinade if that’s all you can find)
freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons or more minced Italian flat-leaf parsley
Grated Parmesan or pecorino Romano cheese

    1. Place the oil, garlic, and red pepper in a medium skillet over medium-low heat. Cook, swirling the pan occasionally, until the garlic is fragrant and just taking on a little bit of color. This can take up to 7 minutes or so if you start with a cold pan over a cold electric burner, but watch carefully so as not to brown or burn the garlic. Toast the bread, if using, while you’re cooking the garlic.
    2. Stir in the beans. Season with a pinch of salt, and cook for 4 minutes, stirring once or twice. Stir in the artichoke hearts and cook for another minute. Taste for salt; season with a twist or two of black pepper. Stir in the parsley.
    3. Place a piece of toast, if using, in a bowl or on a plate. Spoon the bean-artichoke mixture over the toast. Sprinkle with grated cheese. Serves 4 with a salad.

Winning the Rome Derby

Real life offers sadly few opportunities to win things. There are moments that feel like winning—getting a job, say, or getting married. But then you have to live with another person and cannot ever again poop with the door open.

               –Alexandra Petri, A Field Guide to Awkward Silences

This season's first Rome Derby was played on Saturday, September 29, which was the day after Brad's 18th (!) birthday, which was the day after Francesco Totti's birthday. As Wright Thompson pointed out in his excellent piece for ESPN ("The eternal derby reveals why Italian football finds its way into your blood"), the Rome Derby is always played in the afternoon, so police can better deal with the potential of post-match violence between the warring supporters of AS Roma and SS Lazio, the two teams that play in the Italian capital.

Embed from Getty Images

When the game kicked off last Saturday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time (3:00 p.m. in Italy), I didn't know if either Brad or Dylan (6:00 a.m. Pacific time) would be awake.  But sure enough, when I texted to check they were both watching. And so we had our first three-way Derby della Capitale match-thread text, which was the next best thing to watching the big game with my boys in the room with me. Thankfully, it was well worth getting up for, as Roma thrashed Lazio 3-1 in a thrilling performance spearheaded by the 22-year-old Roman Lorenzo Pellegrini, who was playing in his first Rome Derby and fully understands the significance of this match. Real life may not offer many opportunities to actually win things yourself, but it sure feels like you've won something when Roma beats Lazio in the Derby.


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Later that day, we celebrated Brad's birthday at Andi and Adam's house. At Brad's request, we brought Baked Ziti and his favorite Cranberry and White Chocolate Chip Cookies. I also made a batch of Katherine Redford's Chocolate Chip Cookies so there would be enough cookies to go around and for Brad to have plenty left to bring back to school. Because what can make you more popular in a college dorm than sharing a big sack of homemade cookies? All in all, it was a winning day from start to finish.

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Some things that make me cry

Recently, I sent Dylan a piece of creative nonfiction I wrote to get his opinion. He loved it, in part, he said, because I tend to express emotion more strongly in my writing, such as in my blog posts, than in person. I was a little surprised by that, given how easy it is to get me to cry as I've gotten older. But then I realized Dylan hasn't often been around when I'm doing one of the many things that starts the tap flowing for me, including:

1. Family gatherings where I have to say something about any of you;
2. Being injured and unable to run for an extended period;
3. Listening to the great German tenor Fritz Wunderlich sing "Ombra mai fu" from Xerxes by Handel;
4. Watching A.S. Roma beat Barcelona on a late goal in their 2018 Champions League quarterfinal tie, while Dylan and I were madly texting each other from across the country;
5. Watching the "you had me at 'hello'" scene from Jerry Maguire;
6. Watching the "I choose us" scene (among others) from The Family Man;
7. Watching the concluding scene from Crocodile Dundee;
8. Watching the concluding scene from "The Gift," Season 5, Episode 22 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer;
9. Listening to Grandpa Guy tell this story during our recent visit: After Grandma Pina died, my Zio Franco told Grandpa Guy that he had once asked Grandma Pina if she ever regretted leaving her close-knit family behind in Italy to marry Grandpa Guy and live with him in New York. Given how hard it always was on Grandma Pina to be 3,000 miles from her family, Grandpa Guy feared the worst. But Zio Franco said Grandma Pina immediately answered that she would do "everything the same" ("tutto lo stesso").

Okay, so being a sucker for sappy movies may not be tres manly, but I'd have to be a pretty cold-hearted s.o.b. not to well up at #9 on the list.

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Feasting before the Rome derby, episode III

After this week's epochal win over Barcelona in the Champion's League quarterfinals, we had high hopes going into today's derby with our hated city rival Lazio. Alas, it wasn't to be this time, as the game ended in a 0-0 draw, with Bruno Peres and Edin Dzeko both rattling the woodwork for AS Roma. It was still an okay result, as we remain tied with Lazio for the third of four Champions League spots reserved for teams from Serie A, and we have the tiebreaker over Lazio, having defeated them earlier this season. Even so, our position remains precarious, since we're also only one point ahead of Inter, who holds the tiebreaker against us if it comes down to it. I guess we'll just have to win the Champions League this year to secure our direct qualification into the Champions League next year.

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After a months-long inquiry spearheaded by the Charlottesville 29, it has been determined by the cognoscenti that Charlottesville's signature dish is the ham biscuit. Brad will undoubtedly be disappointed that the winner was not an egg-on-everything-bagel from Bodo's, but Chef Angelo appears to be on board as he is now serving up his own version of the dish at C'ville's best restaurant, the Ivy Inn. In honor of the unveiling, here are my own buttermilk biscuits, which I'm sure are not as tasty as Angelo's, but are still pretty good. 

Buttermilk Biscuits

There are lots of ways to cut the butter into the dry ingredients. I went with grating in frozen butter shards, because I keep butter in the freezer, and it's an easy method that works well. You can also cut the butter into ½-inch cubes and incorporate it into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender or by rubbing it in with your fingers. Or you can mix the dry ingredients in a food processor fitted with the steel blade, then scatter ½-inch cubes of cold butter over the flour mixture, and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal, about 8 to 10 one-second pulses. The food processor works very well, but then you have to clean it, which is why I like the grating method.

360 grams (3 cups) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon (12 grams) white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 slightly rounded teaspoon fine sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 stick (113 grams; 8 tablespoons) frozen butter
303 grams (1¼ cups) buttermilk

    1. Place a rack in the center of the oven, and heat to 450 degrees.
    2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
    3. Using the large holes of a box grater, grate the frozen butter onto a plate or cutting board, then scatter the shards over the dry ingredients. Stir the butter into the flour with a silicone spatula.
    4. Pour the buttermilk over the flour-butter mixture. Stir together with the spatula until mostly combined.
    5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Gently knead the dough just enough to bring it together (maybe 8–10 times). Gently pat the dough into a 1-inch-thick rectangle, then fold it over onto itself. Repeat the patting and folding two more times; this will help make flaky layers in the baked biscuits. Gently pat the dough into an 8-by-10-inch rectangle (for square biscuits) or a 9-inch circle (for round biscuits). Either shape should be about ¾-inch thick.
    6a. For square biscuits (easier), flour the edge of a bench scraper. Use the bench scraper to cut the rectangular dough into 12 or so squares. Push straight down when cutting (no twisting).
    6b. For traditional round biscuits, cut circles out of the dough using a floured 2½-inch biscuit cutter. Push straight down when cutting (no twisting). Gather the leftover dough and gently pat it into a ¾-inch-thick circle, working it as little as possible, and continue cutting out biscuit rounds.
    7. Arrange the formed biscuits, upside down, on a 13-by-18-inch baking sheet. (There is no need to grease the baking sheet first.) Bake for 5 minutes, then turn the oven down to 425 degrees. Bake until golden brown, about 7–8 more minutes. Serve warm, with good butter and/or jam, or allow to cool completely to make ham biscuits.

Ham Biscuits
Get your hands on some of the best-quality Virginia country ham you can find. Split biscuits in half. Spread each half with a thin layer of honey mustard. Pile on some thin-sliced country ham.

Holy @#$%ing shit!

Dylan, Brad, and I have been fruitlessly watching AS Roma games for about 10 years now. During that time, Roma has finished second in Serie A no less than five times, but never won the scudetto. Each time we came in second in the league, we went to the UEFA Champions League, often leaving under humiliating circumstances, including a 1-7 beatdown by Manchester United in a quarterfinal leg in 2007 and a 1-6 loss to Barcelona in the 2015-2016 group stage.

But today it all came good, in the greatest moment since we started rooting for Roma. We lost 1-4 at the Camp Nou in last week's first leg of the quarterfinal against Barcelona, which had yet to lose a single match in La Liga or the Champions League this year. The result was flattering to Barca, as Roma scored two own goals, hit the crossbar twice, and had two stone-cold penalties denied by a chickenshit referee. Still, we needed a 3-0 victory at the Olimpico to turn the tie in our favor.

We came out in a very attacking 3-4-1-2 formation, with Radja Nainggolan in the hole behind Edin Dzeko and Patrik Schick. As Dylan said, our coach Eusebio Di Francesco has balls the size of grapefruits. Dzeko scored just six minutes in, converting a Pirloesque ball over the top of the defense by our captain, Daniele DeRossi. Incredibly, Roma were all over Barca, creating lots of chances while holding the best player and team in the world at bay. About 15 minutes into the second half, the ref had no choice but to give us a penalty as Pique hauled Dzeko down in the penalty area. DeRossi, who had scored one of the own goals in the first leg, slammed it home, and we only needed one more to go through on Dzeko's away goal at the Camp Nou. We kept up the pressure. Finally, in the 82nd minute, Kostas Manolas, who, incredibly, had scored the other own goal in the first leg, nodded home a corner from substitute Cengiz Ünder, and we were ahead.

Embed from Getty Images

The sold-out Olimpico went berserk, as did Dylan and I. We sweated through 8 more minutes of regulation, and 4 minutes of injury time, during which Barcelona never really troubled us. So now we have reached our first ever Champions League semifinal. If you want to know just how much this means to long-suffering Roma fans, listen to Carlo Zampa's calls of all three goals (yes, he's in tears during the third one). This is why Nainggolan says he took the "difficult route" to play for Roma, when "it would be too easy to join a successful club to win things."

Brad was at track practice, so he didn't get to watch the game with Dylan and me, as we texted each other madly throughout in disbelief. But I made a big sign announcing the result, and posted it on our front door for Brad to see as soon as he got home:

Grazie Roma!

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Feasting before the Rome derby, episode II

Last time we did this it preceded a great result over Lazio in the derby, so we thought we'd try again. In November, we had Spaghetti all'Amatriciana, with house-made pancetta from the Timbercreek Market. This time, we had Pasta alla Gricia, which is sometimes called "white Amatriciana" because it is a very similar sauce except made without tomatoes. It's best made with guanciale, but I couldn't find any locally so I went with the Timbercreek pancetta again.

We all really liked it, though the pasta tasting was overshadowed by Dylan scarfing eight of Katherine Redford's Chocolate Chip Cookies for dessert, which is the most I've ever seen anyone devour in one sitting (though apparently it's not all that uncommon for Dylan). Glad you liked the cookies, son.

And it looks like a tradition is born, as Roma followed up our pre-game feast with another resounding victory (4-1 this time) over our hated city rivals. Forza Giallorossi!

Spelt spaghetti alla Gricia with Onion

Pasta alla Gricia

Adapted from Rachel Eats

As with Pasta all'Amatriciana, there is some controversy over whether to add onion to the dish, though most recipes leave it out. If you want to try it with onion, dice a small onion (or a medium shallot or two), and sauté the pieces along with the guanciale and oil.

2 teaspoons fine sea salt
1 pound rigatoni or spaghetti
150 grams (5¼ ounces) guanciale or pancetta, cut into short, thick batons
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup (~50 grams grated on a Microplane) grated Pecorino Romano cheese, divided
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, extra for serving

    1. Bring 3 quarts of water to a roiling boil in a large pot over high heat. Add the salt and stir to dissolve. Add the pasta and stir immediately, then stir again a few more times in the first minute or two. Cook until al dente, then drain, reserving a large mugful of the pasta water.
    2. Meanwhile, place the guanciale in a sauté pan or saucier with the oil and set the pan over medium heat. Sauté the guanciale gently, adjusting the heat as needed, until it has rendered its fat and is soft, pink, and translucent, not brown and crisp. Remove 2 tablespoons of the fat to a small bowl, add half of the cheese, and smear them together until the cheese is coated with the fat. Add ¼ cup (a 2-ounce ladleful) of pasta water to the pan, and let it bubble gently while the pasta finishes cooking.
    3. Add the drained pasta to the pan and toss well to coat with the sauce. Remove the pan from the heat, add the cheese-fat mixture and black pepper, and toss again, adding more pasta water as needed to reach a creamy consistency. Serve promptly, passing the remaining cheese and a pepper mill at the table. Serves 4.

Feasting before the Rome derby

Dylan came home for a surprise visit this weekend so we could watch the Rome derby together this morning (a sweet 2-0 Roma victory) and binge-watch Star Wars movies before the new one comes out next month. Last night, I threw together an impromptu dinner for Dylan and Andi, who joined us, too. We had guacamole, Spaghetti all'Amatriciana (with house-made pancetta from the Timbercreek Market), and "Boring" Apple Cake.

Dylan said it was the best guac he's ever had, which made my whole day. (And he didn't tell me I have a bald spot.) The key to this recipe is making a paste out of onion, cilantro, chile, and salt, which coats the avocado, so that "every bite starts with a pop of heat, salt, and herbs, and ends with the mellow, buttery flesh of the" avocado, as Roberto Santibañez says in describing his recipe. I've made the paste successfully with a chef's knife, but it works a lot better with the big-ass granite mortar and pestle I got for my birthday this year. By the time you're done pounding the ingredients with that thing, you really do have a paste. Plus, it's fun, you get an arm workout, and you have a conversation piece to serve your guacamole in.

Guacamole

Adapted from Truly Mexican (2011) by Roberto Santibañez (you can also see the original recipe on Food52)

Time: ~17 minutes

Santibañez explains that the Mexican way to chop cilantro is to start at the stem end and cut off the first two inches of the stems. Then chop your way up toward and through the leaves, making the cuts ⅛-inch apart and using your free hand to keep the leaves close together as you chop.

2 tablespoons (~20 grams) finely chopped white onion
1 tablespoon minced fresh serrano or jalapeño chile (~1 two-inch chile), including seeds, or more to taste
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ cup (10 grams) chopped cilantro, divided (see note)
3 medium (about 8 ounces each) ripe but firm Hass avocados
a squeeze or two of lime

    1. Mash the onion, chile, salt, and half of the cilantro to a paste using a mortar and pestle. You can also make the paste by using a large chef's knife to mince and mash the ingredients together on a cutting board. If you use that method, transfer the paste to a small bowl when you're done.
    2. Halve each avocado lengthwise with a large chef's knife. Carefully whack the knife into the pit, twist the knife, then lift and remove the pit and push it off the knife from the blunt side. Use a knife to score the flesh of the avocados with ¾-inch cross-hatch incisions, cutting down to but not through the skin. You can see how to halve, pit, and chop an avocado in this video. Use a large spoon to scoop the flesh out of the avocados and add the chunks to the mortar or the bowl. Gently but thoroughly fold the avocado into the paste, leaving the avocado in large chunks. Add the rest of the cilantro and mix gently. Don't mash it to mush, it should be chunky! Squeeze some lime juice over the top and stir gently. Taste and adjust for additional lime juice, chile, and/or salt. Serve with tortilla chips.

Breakfast choices

Breakfast has always been easy for Dylan and Brad: cereal with milk, and pretty much always the same cereal. But Cassie has never been a cereal-with-milk person. She has eaten dry cereal for a time but, like everything else she's tried, she got tired of it after a few months and moved on to something else. In addition to dry cereal, Cassie has eaten for breakfast, among other things, Pop-Tarts and yogurt with crushed-up Oreos. Yeah, I'm not too proud of either of those choices as a parent. So I added homemade granola to the weekend baking lineup. That lasted a few months before Cassie was ready to move on again. For now, Cassie is eating a slice of homemade bread, toasted and with a schmear of faux Nutella (aka Hazelnut Cocoa Spread).

The first time Cassie and I made the spread together was quite the father-daughter bonding experience. The original recipe published in America's Test Kitchen's D.I.Y. Cookbook has you roast raw hazelnuts and then, when they're cool enough to handle, shake them "vigorously" between two bowls to remove the skins. The accompanying text warns that you should try and remove as much of the skins as possible or they'll make the spread taste bitter. So Cassie and I took turns shaking like mad for the better part of 45 minutes. By then, the remaining nuts were being reduced to dust but the pesky skins were hanging on for dear life. So we proceeded with the recipe and made the spread, which tasted just fine.

The good folks at America's Test Kitchen must have figured out that the shaking method is not an ideal way to remove hazelnut skins so when they republished the recipe a few years later in Cook's Illustrated, they had a new method for removing the skins. This time, they said to boil the nuts for a few minutes in water laced with a lot of baking soda (6 tablespoons for 1 quart of water), then transfer the nuts to an ice bath before slipping the skins off. You can actually see this method in action in this video of Alice Medrich making hazelnut biscotti with Julia Child. And it works well. The skins really do slip right off. But it's still a pain in the neck and liable to cut into my AS Roma-watching time on the weekend.

So the next time I was in Trader Joe's and saw Dry Roasted & Unsalted Oregon Hazelnuts, I took a flyer. Here is what 8 ounces of Trader Joe's dry-roasted hazelnuts look like:

Only about two-thirds of the skins are off (I didn't count them individually), but I was willing to risk some bitterness in order to watch Totti and the other ragazzi play. And I may not have a very sophisticated palate, but it tasted just fine to me, and all the rest of you, too. So now I can make faux Nutella in about 10 minutes and still feel better about Cassie's breakfast choices.

Hazelnut Cocoa Spread

Adapted from Cook's Illustrated #132 (Jan/Feb 2015) & America's Test Kitchen Kids

Hazelnut oil is pricey but one can makes about 17 batches of spread. You can also substitute walnut or canola oil.

8 ounces (2 cups) Trader Joe’s Dry Roasted & Unsalted Oregon Hazelnuts
4 ounces (1 cup) confectioners' sugar
1 ounce (⅓ cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) hazelnut oil (see note)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
⅛ teaspoon salt

    1. Weigh the hazelnuts into a small bowl, then transfer them to a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Process until the nuts release their oil and a smooth, loose paste forms, about 5 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally.
    2. While the hazelnuts are processing, weigh the sugar and cocoa powder into the small bowl. Add to the hazelnut paste along with the rest of the ingredients. Process until the mixture becomes glossy and spreadable, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of bowl as needed.
    3. Transfer the spread to a two-cup container with a tight-fitting lid. The spread can be stored at room temperature or refrigerated for up to 1 month. The spread will become stiffer if you refrigerate it. Makes about 1½ cups.

Granola cooled in the baking sheet

No-Stir Chocolate Granola

Time from start to finish: 42 minutes to removal from the oven (using the standard banking instructions in step 3)

This is the perfect recipe to make using your kitchen scale. Weigh the ingredients into the same bowl one after another, stir them all together, and you’re done. If you omit the coconut, use an additional 67 grams (⅔ cup) of rolled oats.

120 grams (6 tablespoons) real maple syrup; or 80 grams (4 tablespoons) maple syrup + 40 grams (2 tablespoons) honey
50 grams (¼ cup) brown sugar or coconut sugar (⅜ cup)
70 grams (⅓ cup) oil, such as olive, sunflower, or melted coconut
2 teaspoons (8 grams) vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon fine salt
400 grams (4 cups) rolled oats
1 cup raw almonds (120 grams) and/or raw pecans (100 grams), chopped coarse; or slivered almonds (half a bag of Trader Joe’s slivered almonds is 115 grams and will get you two batches of granola)
60 grams (1½ cups) unsweetened coconut chips (preferably) or unsweetened coconut flakes (see note)
60 grams (½ cup) sunflower seeds
50–75 grams bittersweet chocolate (to taste), chopped coarse (4–6 squares of Trader Joe’s Pound Plus 72% Cacao Dark Chocolate)
130 grams (~1 cup) dried cherries, raisins, or other fruit, or a combination (optional)

    1. Heat the oven to 300°F. Spray an 18-by-13-inch baking sheet with cooking spray.
    2. In a large bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, sugar, oil, vanilla, and salt. Weigh in the oats, nuts, coconut, and sunflower seeds, and stir with a silicone spatula until everything is thoroughly coated.
    3. Press the mixture into the baking sheet with the spatula or a potato masher. Bake until the granola is lightly browned (but see step 5 below), about 30 minutes.
    4. Remove from the oven and cool completely, still in the baking sheet. When cool, remove the granola from the baking sheet with a relatively stiff turner/spatula and break into whatever size pieces you like (I like some big chunks). Transfer to an airtight container or plastic bag, and mix in the chocolate and the dried fruit, if using. Store for up to a month. With all the add-ins, this makes about 1 kilogram/2¼ pounds of granola. (NB: You would pay about $24 for this much of a similar granola of this quality at the City Market or online.)
    5. If you don’t think you’ll eat all of the granola within a week, you may want to dry it more thoroughly to keep it from getting soft over long storage. To do so, bake until a little bit shy of the brownness you like (check at 25 minutes or so). Then leave the granola in the oven, turn the oven off, and crack it open a few inches (a folded potholder or two work well for this job). When the oven is just lukewarm, about 20 minutes or so, shut the oven door and allow everything to cool completely. Just be sure not to turn the oven on for another baking project before you take the granola out!