Olive Oil Granola With Dried Apricots and Pistachios

I called Nekisia Davis, the owner of Early Bird Granola, to see if she would divulge the recipe for the granola I had tasted in the store. I knew Ms. Davis from when she was a manager at Franny’s restaurant, where she used to concoct amaro from roots, stems and leaves. She gave me the proportions, emphasizing that it’s the balance of sweet and salty that makes her granola like health-conscious crack. But how did you come up with the idea to use olive oil? I asked. “I put olive oil in everything,” she said. “I make French toast in olive oil. I put it on toast with jelly. Besides, the fat in olive oil is really good for you; it negates itself.” Her recipe was easy. Before baking, I mixed up the ingredients, substituting pistachios for pecans, and nixing the sunflower seeds because I don’t like them. I also added dashes of cinnamon and cardamom to complement the apricots, which I tossed with the warm granola when it came out of the oven (adding the fruit before baking dries it out). Once it cooled, I mixed the granola into a bowl of ripe berries, dabbing the top with milky ricotta. I lapped it up and yearned for more. But that was no problem. With two quarts in the cupboard and the recipe on hand, I knew I would be eating granola all summer long — unless the hungry hordes find out where I live. Time: 50 minutes

The secret weapon in this addictive granola is, yes, olive oil, which gives the oats and coconut chips a wonderful crispy bite. Make sure to add the fruit after baking (putting it in the oven will dry it out), and feel free to improvise: swap out the apricots for dried cherries, the pistachios for walnuts, the cardamom for a little nutmeg. But double the batch. You won’t want to run out.