My manuscript is due on June 1.  Hello from the Cave – or, as I first typed, “Hell from the Cave,” which has a nice slasher-movie ring to it.  Hi.

For those keeping track, no, you are not crazy: the book was supposed to be due in March.  I had to ask for an extension, unfortunately, because of the small human under my shirt who makes me very tired, and because there’s been a difficult health situation in my family.  2012 came in roaring, and though I wish it would settle down and start acting its age, I doubt it’s going to.  I am, however, going to FINISH THIS BOOK.  If I can stay awake long enough.

Each night, when I get into bed, I’ve been reading a few pages of Nina Planck.  Her books were recommended to me by a couple of you, and clearly, you know me well.  For obvious reasons, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I eat and why, and Planck’s defense of traditional whole foods like butter, eggs, and meat feels intuitive to me.  It’s been a nice, sensible way to close out my long days. (And so, I should note, has Friday Night Lights, which I just finished.  I miss Tim Riggins already.  I’m not proud to have fallen for the brooding-hunk routine, but I’m willing to own it.  I would also be willing, for the record, to watch an entire hour of close-ups of Taylor Kitsch’s lips, if the producers of the show ever decide to make a Best of Tim Riggins’s Makeout Scenes DVD.)

In any case, I was doing some research the other day, looking up granola bar recipes for a forthcoming Spilled Milk episode.  When I came across one on Smitten Kitchen, it leapt out at me – not only because it made a chewy granola bar, which I like, and because it came from Deb, who knows her way around a kitchen, but mostly because I loved the no-nonsense ingredients: oats, nuts, nut butter, dried fruits, butter, honey, and very little else.  The list of ingredients resonated with much of what I’ve been reading in Planck’s book, and that sealed the deal.  I decided to try it.  Of course, I did add chocolate.  Let’s be clear about that.

I love these granola bars.  They straddle the line between nutritious afternoon pick-me-up, which I’ve been needing lately, and dessert, which I never really need but want anyway.  For the most part, I followed Deb’s recipe – which she, in turn, adapted from King Arthur Flour – but I tailored the flavorings to suit my tastes.  For a nut, I used pecans, because I like them in granola.  I also threw in some big flakes of coconut.  And some dried cherries, though only a few.  (I don’t like a lot of fruit in my granola.)  And the chocolate.  I grew up on packaged granola bars with chocolate chips, and you know how I’ve come to feel about granola with chocolate, so it felt natural to throw in some chocolate chips that had been kicking around in the cupboard.  I didn’t bother to chop anything, not even the pecan halves, and I was glad for it later.  I liked all the lumps and bumps.  The whole process took less than an hour, most of which was oven time, and 72 hours later, only a couple of bars are left.  Brandon has been eating them for breakfast, and I took two to Matthew, and you can figure out the rest.  I’m already planning another batch.