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Earl Grey Granola, Please!
Some people have routines so engrained they eat the same thing every day, poop at the same time, and generally have their lives together. I respect that but can’t do it. I need things to “sparkle” (which I can’t stop saying after listening to this episode of my favorite podcast, Hidden Brain) by having breakfast tacos one morning, granola the next, a giant apple fritter the next.
Last year, I worked with Justine Doiron (aka @justine_snacks, queen of beans) on the words for her cookbook that just came out, Justine Cooks. It was fun! I love her. She cooks how I aspire to: hyper-locally, meat-minimally, lots of bread and cheese. While we worked, I’d make recipes from her Google Docs that called to me, even though cooking from a Google Doc is as tragic as it gets. I still couldn’t resist making her preserved lemons that became a staple, tiramisu-inspired cookies that were a hit at my book club, breadcrumb-crusted beans that blew my mind… and then this granola.
As a wannabe Ann Arbor crunchy hippie, I love granola (see also: Birkenstocks, the Grateful Dead, not mowing my lawn). But it’s so expensive, I refuse to buy it at the store. Homemade, all the way. And I love how it looks in a jar on my counter, like I’m someone who’d never, ever hold a bag of Fritos to my mouth to cash in on the final crumbs. Justine’s granola recipe includes roasting pears, which is very chic, but I’m actually here for the crispy oats, which are coated in an Earl Grey-infused butter that fills your home with the scent of baking cookies. It tastes cozy and restrained, like a hug from an English grandmother. I eat it with yogurt and berries, or with milk as late-night cereal.
Earl Grey Granola with Roasted Pears
by Justine Doiron
(Note from Alex: Not to go all New York Times Cooking commenter on you, but I do mess with the recipe based on what I’ve got in the house, because in the handful of times I’ve made it, I learned it’s pretty flexible. So, here’s Justine’s original recipe with my little annotations in italics, take ’em or leave ’em.)
8 tablespoons salted butter
2 Earl Grey teabags (or 2 heaping teaspoons of loose-leaf tea, blitzed in a spice grinder)
3 medium Bosc pears, halved and cored
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
¼ cup flaxseed meal
¼ cup pumpkin seeds
2 tablespoons hemp hearts (I do 1 cup of pecans instead, I know that’s not an equal measure but it works, okay? I love nuts)
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Diamond Crystal kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
⅓ cup honey (or maple syrup!)
1 large egg white
Milk of choice, for serving
1. Equally stagger two racks in the oven and preheat it to 325°F.
2. Set a small pan over medium heat and add the butter. Let the butter fully melt, then tear open the tea bags, pour in the tea leaves, and swirl to combine. The mixture will begin to bubble slightly, so turn the heat to low and stir for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.
3. Place two pear halves on a piece on a sheet of aluminum foil, cut side up. Spoon 1 tablespoon of the Earl Grey butter mixture over the cut sides, and wrap them into a packet with the fold on top, being careful there are not cuts or punctures in the foil. Set them on the bottom rack of the oven to bake for 30 minutes.
4. In a large bowl, combine the oats, flaxseed meal, pumpkin seeds, hemp hearts, cinnamon, and ½ teaspoon salt. Pour the remaining 5 tablespoons butter mixture into the bowl, add the vanilla and honey, and mix well. (If you’re not making the pears, add all of the butter and up to ½ cup more oats if the mixture looks pretty saucy; you want it coated, not sopping wet!)
5. In a small bowl, whisk the egg white until foamy. Add that to the bowl with the granola mix and stir to coat everything evenly.
6. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and spread the granola on the sheet. Transfer to the top rack of the oven to bake until golden brown and dry to the touch, 25 to 30 minutes.(I stir after 15 minutes and make sure to keep an eye on things at the 25-minute mark because my oven runs hot and burnt granola is an expensive mistake.)
7. To serve, add half a pear to each bowl and top with a heaping scoop of granola and a splash of milk. Drizzle on any remaining buttery pear juice left over in the foil; it will dot on top of the milk, which is supremely satisfying.
8. This recipe will leave you with some leftover granola, which you can store in a cool, dry place for up to a week.
Alex Beggs is a writer and copywriter who lives with her partner in Michigan. Her articles have appeared in Bon Appetit, Elle Decor, and The New York Times. She has also written for Cup of Jo about her dad’s meatloaf, cold cake, and (very) bad hair days.
P.S. Blueberry baked oatmeal, and overnight French toast.
Reprinted with permission from Justine Cooks: Recipes (Mostly Plants) for Finding Your Way in the Kitchen by Justine Doiron. Copyright © 2024 by Justine Doiron. Top photograph copyright © 2024 by Jim Henkens; other two photos by Alex Beggs. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
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Last chance to score the latest Visual Studio Pro for just $43
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One of the biggest upgrades here is how seamlessly AI is integrated into your workflow. Instead of feeling like an add-on, features like IntelliCode actively learn from your codebase to suggest entire lines or blocks of code, help refactor on the fly, and reduce repetitive tasks. It’s less about replacing your workflow and more about quietly speeding it up.
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Gift with $100+ purchase promo ends April 19, 2026. Exclusions apply. Only one promo code applicable per order. Prices subject to change.
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Entertainment
Get 56% off this 8-in-1 portable keyring
TL;DR: Charge On the go with 56% off this 8-in-1 keyring cable when you get the GoCable 8-in-1 EDC 100W Cable for just $21.99 (Reg. $49.99).
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Whether you’re an experienced adventurer or a newbie to the outdoors, there are certain tools you need, including (but not limited to) adequate hydration, proper gear, and backup power options for your phone. With the GoCable, 8 features are combined into one portable tool that might optimize your outdoor experiences.
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Entertainment
BookCon 2026: Authors Rachel Reid, Stephanie Archer talk hockey romance and how it could change the sport for the better
With the fervor of Heated Rivalry, there’s a fierce desire among book readers for even more hockey. On Sunday, April 19, at BookCon, the “You Had Me at Hockey: A Look at One of Sports Romance’s Hottest Genres”, authors Rachel Reid (Heated Rivalry, Game Changer), Emily Rath (Pucking Around), Ngozi Ukazu (Check Please), Stephanie Archer (The Wild Card), and Kate Cochrane (Wake Up, Nat & Darcy) were joined by moderator and fellow author Bal Khabra (Collide) to discuss the rise and continued success of hockey romance.
Khabra kicked off the panel, asking just how hockey became so popular. Ukazu joked that it was as if the genre “escaped containment,” like when the Omegaverse went mainstream, while Reid described the mystery around hockey, saying, “what [the players] are doing seems impossible.” Archer also added that the sport itself is exceptionally hard on the body, and the celebrity around players, especially in Canada, is fun to play with.
But there’s more to the genre’s success than the tropes. “It has to be said,” Rath argued, “that the cornerstone of why this is so popular in publishing is racism.” She went on to say that straight, white women’s voices dominated the romance genre for so long, pointing out that hockey is also the whitest sport. Among major league sports, the NHL is the most predominantly white. In 2022, ESPN reported that 83.6% of league players and staff were white, compared to the NFL, where 25-27% of players are white, or the NBA, where white players make up 17.5% of the league.
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Zooming into the genre, the authors also spoke about the writing process. They dove into the deeper aspects of their work, even the smut. Rath said, “I think the least sexy thing you can ever do is write a sex scene.” A similar sentiment came up during Reid’s Saturday panel, where she described using the sex scenes to further the emotional arc. When readers ask authors if they can skip the spice, Archer says of her own books, “No, you can’t skip the sex scenes. You’re missing so much character development if you don’t go on the journey with them.”
The panel turned to the future, too. Many of the authors write BIPOC and queer representation into their novels, in a genre that often centers on whiteness and homophobia. “We’re writing the world as we want it to be,” Rath said.
Reid has found that there is progress toward a future that these authors and their readers want to see, saying that the NHL is interested in working with them. “People on the inside, they really want to work toward change and want to make this happen.”
With the hockey fandom at an all-time high, there’s a whole team behind these authors ready to drive change.
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