Cacao buckwheat granola

Food has felt complicated lately and this granola has helped

One thing I did not expect about becoming a personal chef is how hard it can be to feed yourself consistently while spending all day feeding other people.

You’d think being around food constantly and meal prepping for a family of five would make it easier, and in a lot of ways it does. I love cooking. I love exploring flavor and ingredients and the ritual of feeding people. But I’m also learning that even the things you deeply love can feel really heavy when they become intertwined with work, performance, time, and self-image all at once. I think I’m trying to relearn what nourishment actually feels like outside of optimization.

The frustrating part is… I’m literally a chef. I think about food 80-90% of my day. Yet somehow I still catch myself falling into these really rigid ideas around what I should eat or what my body should look like. Especially online. My explore page is currently an endless rotation of cutting phases, hyper-discipline, six-pack lighting, “what I eat in a day,” chicken and rice and broccoli over and over again. I never asked for that, but admittedly I do click on those videos. Trust, I’m working on getting my algorithm back to the screaming chicken meme.

And while I love fitness and taking care of myself, I think somewhere along the way I started confusing restriction with discipline. It’s strange realizing that even while building a life around food, I can still feel disconnected from my own appetite sometimes. Like there’s this version of myself that wants to cook more freely, eat more intuitively, enjoy dessert without turning it into a moral decision - and I’m trying to get back to that.

This granola has become one of those things that has made food/ eating a bit more exciting for me in the midst of all of it. It’s so incredibly crunchy (thanks to the egg white), chocolatey, salty, filling, and easy to throw over yogurt or eat by the handful while cooking. The buckwheat gives it this earthy texture I really love, and the cacao keeps it somewhere between breakfast and dessert. Granola might be one of the most forgiving things you can make. So, add what you have, what sounds good, and what feels like the season you’re currently living in.

Ingredients

Dry

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup raw buckwheat groats