… and so do the lives of the two main characters in The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Renée Michel, a 54-year-old concierge in a Parisian luxury building, and Paloma Josse, a 12-year-old girl, the daughter of a bourgeois family in this same building.
Paloma has decided that life is meaningless.
She is making plans to commit suicide on her 13th birthday.
But before she dies, Paloma vows to write down profound thoughts in haiku-format and keeps a journal of the beauty of movement of the world — and while reading her journals, I find my eyes glancing at the newly purchased Kitchen Aid Mixer that’s sitting on my counter! So I read and I glance and I think of the movement of the dough as it would turn in the mixer.
I will myself back to reading the book.
Renée the concierge, is also in search of meaning and love and beauty, but instead of plotting her own suicide she shuts life out. She closes the door of her loge and inside it hides her love of art, tea time temptations with homemade pastries, and philosophical books.
All this talk of beauty and the rhythm of things made me think of Lamb’s Gorecki, its beating of the drum contrasting and complementing the soft movement of the wool she traces. This song signifies Paloma and Renée’s quest for love — love in all that is around us. Or love in the flow of words, because a grammatically correct sentence that uses equilibrium in choosing its words is magnificent. Well, or so think the characters in this book (I hope they never read my blog for it chops away the rules of grammar like the pecans I just coarsely chopped!).
So Gorecki becomes the song I play on repeat as I continue reading.
As the lives of Renée and Paloma unfold and overlap, they each find completeness in their world at last. Renee has finally found the one she has waited for. Paloma might have found a reason to live for. And I got thinking: it’s when I can have dessert for breakfast that I find completeness. And isn’t the way granola becomes clumpy and chewy worthy of the journal of the movement of the world?
With pecans already chopped, I set to make homemade granola. More specifically I set to make Orangette’s Daily Granola, adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Feast. Exchanging sunflower and sesame seeds for shredded unsweetened coconut, I was excited about the prospects of the unsweetened apple sauce.
Dry ingredients
5 cups rolled oats
2 to 3 cups raw almonds or pecan halves, or a mixture
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
¾ cup light brown sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. salt
Wet ingredients
¾ cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/3 cup brown rice syrup
¼ cup honey
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, such as canola or safflower
I preheat the oven to 300°F, spread the mixture (dry and wet ones combined together) onto my prepared baking sheet and await the moment when all of a sudden this mixture turns a golden brown colour.
To make the granola more dessert like, I’m pairing it with some blackberries and creating a parfait.
Photo Credit: Flickr: all_taken's blackberries before
So granola is in a bowl. Blackberries topped with some sugar are in a bowl. Cream is awaiting the mixer!
I use the Joy of Baking recipe for parfait and as such beat 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, 1/2 cup heavy cream, 3 tablespoons confectioners sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract in the mixer until soft peaks form.
At last, this crunchy, clumpy, creamy, and fruity edifice is ready for its construction. So I layer the granola with parfait and berries, eat if for breakfast, and feel complete.