the wonderbreads and the granolas

When I was in high school, I dreaded physical education. I dreaded it for many reasons, but mostly because I dislike participating in sports. It is just the opposite of fun for me. Our PE teachers were mostly athletes who assumed that everyone liked sports. Physical education consisted of one week of square dancing plus 39 weeks of assorted miserable awful sports. Most of these were team sports, because what other kinds of sports are there that you can do with 30 fifteen year old girls in an aging gymnasium and a soggy uneven playing field?

To make matters worse, we were allowed to pick our own teams so long as we did so quickly. All of the strong, athletic girls would go to one side of the gym, and the rest of us smart, fat, uncoordinated, artistic, creative, misfit, lovely, kind, interesting girls would go to the other side. Sometimes our teachers let us make up team names, other times they'd just call us "Jody's Team," after the sportiest of the sporty girls, and "The Other Team." I exaggerate here. I suspect they named the team after one of us "other" girls, but I can't remember. I have blocked that out. I do remember that I always called the teams (in my own mind) "The Wonderbreads" and "The Granolas." I was a granola.

Now we are all 52 and 53 years old, and we are all Granolas. Age has a way of doing that. What seemed like insurmountable differences to a 15 year old, exist no longer. Some of us have arthritis. Some of us are very fit. Some of us like sports. Some of us like art. Some of us like both. It really doesn't matter. In high school Phys Ed, it really mattered. The memories stick with me. One example: the vision of a Wonderbread Girl wearing blue shorts and a white t-shirt running hell bent for leather towards me, propelling a soccer ball before her, at a terrifying speed. It was all I could do to jump out of the way and let her score a goal on the poor girl who got elected goal-keeper for our team. At the time I interpreted her advance as a malevolent gesture. Now I think she was just playing soccer. It was a language that I did not understand.

This big bowl recipe is for all of the women who were girls with me in my grade 10 Phys Ed class. Granolas and Wonderbreads unite. Together we are members of one big humanity of people who get up in the morning, eat breakfast, care for families and friends, go to work, watch or play sports - or not. It doesn't matter.

Peanut butter and Almond Granola

5 cups old fashioned rolled oats (not quick cooking, not steel cut)
1 cup whole, unblanched almonds
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup dried cranberries

Heat your oven to 350. Melt the peanut butter and honey in a saucepan until they are liquidy. Mix them together with the oats and almonds in a big bowl.

Spread the granola on a large cookie sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes, turning the granola over and moving the stuff in the centre out to the edges every 5 minutes or so, until all of the granola is toasty golden, but not dark brown. Your nose will tell you when it is done.

Add the cranberries to the still warm granola and stir them to distribute them thoroughly. Let the granola cool. Store it in an airtight container.

Enjoy this granola with yogurt and fruit. Enjoy your sports, your arts, your friends and loved ones. We are all Granolas. We are all Wonderbreads.