Quinoa müesli

"   What matters has never been money, or laws. It is people. [...]

    It is people that matter - them, and their hearts. And I leant very slowly. I leant like the stag had done for my hand - gently, and in silence, and with shining eyes, for it is so hard, so very hard, to give all your trust away to another life, to put your nature down and be fragile for a while. I was partly scared. All my life, I had been partly scared. But I was tired, now. I was so hugely tired - in my body, and mind. I thought of the stag's thick fur. I thought of his life of sideways rain, and rock, and how he'd turned upon his hooves, and run. He had also grown tired. I'd seen it - how he'd trodden closer, and closer. I'd seen the half-close of his eyes, as he came towards my hand. His mouth had opened slowly. His breath had been so warm, and like the stag's breath was warm, mine was warm. My  breath was on Alasdair's face, and I held my mouth above his mouth, breathing his breath in. We were frail then. We hovered, sharing breath. We were eyes, and breath, and fear, and need, and that was the moment - the small, bare moment - where it was too late to turn, to pull away.

    I was done with fighting.

    I was done with witch. [...]

    I'd dragged witch all my life. I'd cried from it, and felt alone. I'd been bruised and chased because of it, and spat upon, and my mother had been murdered, and her mother had been. But it had brought me here, to this moment - to being with him. [...]

We are the magick - we are. The truest magick in this world is in us, Mr Leslie. It is in our movements and in what we say and feel. I learnt this from the second son of the twelfth chief on the snowy night their people were slain so cruelly in their glen. His father had died, and his mother, and the Highlands were dying also in their way, and yet still he came to find me. He held my hand, and when we kissed, he made a sound like he could rest, now - like he had imagined it a thousand times. That kiss. "

Corrag, Susan Fletcher

I fell in love with books in early primary school (I was about 7). Our school was a rural school and the library tiny. The librarian, from the village library, would come and read us stories or parts of books. She read to us one day a book from a well-known children's novel writer, Marie Desplechin, called Verte. The story of a young girl named Verte ("Green") struggling with being a witch. My love for books has grown and grown since. A few books have changed me in a way I would never imagine words would do but it had been a while since this sort of magic happened. Until recently. A novel by Susan Fletcher bewitched me. A novel about a witch. Corrag.

Corrag is a gaunt young woman imprisoned for being a witch, condemned to be burnt when spring comes. As the first snowdrops break through the sleet, as she awaits her grisly death, she tells the story of her different lives that have taken her to find love and witness the massacre of the MacDonalds of Glencoe. 

I was drawn to Corrag, I wanted to put a shawl on her scrawny shoulders and watch the sun sets on Glen Coe with her, wash my peat-stained body in cristalline waterfalls, keep spiders in my tousled hair. 

Every scene of the book comes to life through the monologue of Corrag. Every word appeals to your senses: you will see the wild, untamed Highland landscapes, you will feel the cold winter wind on your face while galloping on a horse, you will smell herbs warmed up in milk in order to make a poultice, you will taste mushrooms roasted in garlic leaves, and you will hear. You will hear your heart pounds at the dragging of logs to the pyre.

The sheer beauty of the poetry of this book cast a spell on me. 

Some of the novels that have changed me:

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald 

Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis

Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

L'Étranger - Camus (The Stranger)

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Lolita - Nabokov

What I like best about this müesli is that the flavours are neutral (well, except chocolate but chocolate goes well with everything, am I right?) so you can add different toppings: spices, fruits, flavoured yoghurt, caramel drizzle, vanilla milk, shaved apple...
I recommend you try mashed bananas + cinnamon or the serving suggestion below!

Quinoa müesli
(vegan, gluten-free)
(for 300 g müesli)

50 g puffed quinoa
20 g corn flakes
30 g buckwheat flakes
60 g cashews
70 g raisins
70 g chocolate chips

to serve:
non-dairy yoghurt
flaxseed meal
raw cacao
agave syrup


Combine all ingredients and voilà!
Store in an air-tight container.
Serve with yogurt (I used soya), sprinkle with flaxseed meal and cacao and drizzle with agave syrup.


Müesli au quinoa
(végétalien, sans gluten)
(pour 300 g)

50 g quinoa soufflé
20 g flocons de maïs (garantis sans gluten)
30 g flocons de sarrasin
60 g noix de cajou
70 g raisins secs
70 g pépites de chocolat

pour servir:
yaourt végétal
graines de lin moulues
cacao en poudre cru
sirop d'agave

Mélanger tous les ingrédients et voilà!
Conserver dans un récipient hermétique. Servir avec du yaourt végétal, saupoudrer de graines de lin moulues et de cacao et sucrer de sirop d'agave.