If you can see Mt. Baker, you are part of The Experience
Summer in the North Puget Sound arrives with light that lingers and with fields and foothills offering themselves up in a kind of generous excess. The mornings are softer, yes — but they are also full of possibility. One wakes not to endure the day, but to enter it.
And so breakfast changes.
Where winter asks for warmth and patience, summer asks for readiness. For something that can be gathered quickly before heading out the door, packed into a day bag, or eaten sitting on a tailgate with Mount Baker just beginning to reveal itself through the morning haze. Granola, in this season, becomes less a substitute for something else and more a perfect expression of it: portable, sustaining and open to whatever the land is offering.
Because granola, at its best, is not the main event. It is the ground on which summer lays its gifts.
Here, that means berries — a bounty of them. Huckleberries, small and dusky, carrying the high country in their flavor. Wild blueberries, sun-warmed and fleeting. The bright sweetness of Skagit strawberries, still tasting faintly of the fields they came from. And Whatcom raspberries, soft and fragrant, collapsing almost at the touch. These are not ingredients so much as moments, and granola gives them a place to gather.
The Buck Samish granola is built with this in mind. It is sturdy without being heavy, lightly sweetened with maple syrup, and rich with oats, nuts and seeds that offer both energy and a certain quiet satisfaction. Coconut oil binds it all together, lending just enough richness to carry you through a long hike, a morning paddle, or an afternoon spent wandering roadside stands in search of fruit.
It is the kind of food that asks little of you but gives a great deal in return. Something you can make once and rely on, whether you are heading into the mountains or simply stepping outside to see what the day has become.
Makes 20 cups; fills a 1-gallon tub
Ingredients
10 cups rolled oats
2 cups sliced raw almonds
1½ cups raw broken pecans
1 cup raw pepitas
1 cup raw sunflower seeds
2 cups unsweetened dry coconut shreds
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾ cup coconut oil, warmed to liquid state
1 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions
Cover 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
Set oven to 350 degrees.
Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
In a separate measure, combine coconut oil, maple syrup, and vanilla.
Drizzle the liquid over the dry mixture, turning it with your hands or large spoons until evenly coated.
Divide between the pans and spread out evenly.
Bake each pan separately for about 30 minutes, turning the mixture at the 15-minute mark, until golden brown. Add a few minutes more if needed.
Allow to cool completely before storing in a tightly sealed container. It will keep for at least a month.
It may be made without nuts — simply increase the seeds and coconut to maintain its generous volume.
Serve it with a good handful of whatever berries you’ve found that week. X
Georgia Johnson is a food wrangler and poet based in La Conner, Washington.
