Beets

I never had “cool” cereal growing up.  My parents jumped on health-freak bandwagon in the early 90s and never looked back.  They bought a juicer, and soon we were drinking lunch; they started boiling cabbage and making these weird soups; we never had real milk anymore, it was all rice and soy milk.  Obviously, at that moment, I knew the potential for mornings filled with Captain Crunch and Corn Pops were long gone. It really put a cramp in my sleepover style since the morning after all of us girls were subjected to a few boring options: Kelloggs plain, boring as hell corn flakes, or my Dad’s buckwheat pancakes.  Yeah, not bisquick with Aunt Jemima syrup, but buckwheat pancakes with real maple syrup.  Now, as an adult, I’d leap at the latter, but when you’re nine and donning Care Bear PJ’s with three of your best girlfriends, the former is where the fun is at.   So when I picked up Kim Boyce’s Good to the Grain, I was a little hesitant.  Is everything gonna taste mealy? Is it going to taste too grainy, and all “healthy-like”? Are the muffins going to weigh 10 lbs? I’d baked with whole wheat flour and oat flour before, but my experience was really limited, and associated those types of flours with being healthy, something that of course I’m concerned with, especially in the month of May when the possibility of being in a bathing suit is one wretched heat wave away.

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