Julian and I come from different flower families. I grew up with jasmine, gardenia, plumeria, orchids, flowers that get sweeter and more lurid in the heat. Julian, on the other hand, comes from a flower family more “country inn” than “tropical hothouse.” Think rose, geranium, lavender, the flowers that would scent the pages of Virgina Woolf’s diary. That sort of thing.

I’ve come to like lavender quite a bit, and anyone who comes to our apartment will see an explosion of lavender soap, body salt, detergent. We used to keep lavender in every windowsill until the dried-out buds littered the floor like purple rat droppings.

On that note! I made this granola to extend our lavender lust. I think it’s best to make this with a berry of some sort, preferably something in the blue-purple spectrum. Like rose and raspberry, lavender and blueberry just makes sense. It’s nice for the flower to be associated, if only by color, with a delectable fruit. If you happen to make a banana lavender cream pie or something equally random, you run the risk of your dessert tasting like you dropped it in potpourri.

Recipe: Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Get about 35 stems of lavender. Reserve buds from 8-10 stems then chop the remaining stripped and unstripped stems in hot water, just enough to cover, for 5 minutes. Mix 4 cups thick-cut oats with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/3 cup blueberry jam, 1 cup pecan pieces, and a pinch of salt. Add lavender-infused water. Discard the infused lavender. Bake in two batches on a cookie sheet for 10-15 minutes, until oats are golden. Let oats cool and harden, then add 1/3 cup dried wild blueberries and the reserved lavender buds, finely minced.

Note: All lavender is fragrant, but not all is edible. Buy it from the herb stand at the greenmarket, not the home section of Bed Bath & Beyond.

What other herbs and flowers would you put in your breakfast cereal? Leave your comments below!

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Britney Spears reportedly demands Captain Crunch and Pop Tarts in her green room. Madonna needs Kabbalah water. And Christina Aguilera cannot perform without a jar of Flinstones Vitamins.

If I were a pop star, I might request this Kumquat, Quinoa & Nutmeg Cereal. This is a sophisticated treat that’s wholesome, bitter, sour, sweet, and subtly spiced. It’s also esoteric enough to keep up my difficult pop star persona, and healthy enough that I won’t feel gross on stage. But, if they bring me millet or spelt — hell will break loose.

Recipe: Mix 1 heaping tablespoon of marmalade with 1 1/2 cup of cooked quinoa. Add 5-7 sliced kumquats. Loosen with some milk (rice, soy, regular), and top with fresh grated nutmeg.

My friend Andrea first introduced me to chaat seven or so years ago, the night after the Harvard-Yale game. The day was exhausting from traveling, drinking, socializing and general shlepping. The chaat was a genie of a dish and gave me everything I wanted — crunch, freshness, fry, milk, spice, sweetness, sour — a vaudeville show for the hungry and weary.

Surely we could all use such a magical snack, especially for breakfast. In this recipe, kiwi jam lends a floral tropical umami, the oats contribute a wholesome chew, the cashews deliver their chomp and distinctive slightly sweet nuttiness. I also added dried green mango which is sour, sliced very thin and has a powdery coating that feels good running along your tongue, like peach fuzz. Puffed wheat and buckwheat groats provide pop and heart in other ways. The first is like a foamy pilow, the second like a balloon.

Which is all to say, this breakfast chaat can wake you up, sober you up, and give you a dynamo start to your day.

Recipe: Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Mix 2 cups thick-cut rolled with 1/4 cup of kiwi jam, 1/2 cup of cashew pieces and a pinch of salt. Spread on baking pan and toast until golden, about 5-7 minutes. Mix toasted oat mixture with 1/4 cup diced dried green mango, 1 cup puffed wheat, and 1/4 cup of buckwheat groats. Serve with yogurt and fruit.

This isn’t my first chaat. Check out my Jeweled Quinoa Timbale, inspired by Suvir Saran, here.

While Julian studies for finals, I’m trying to funnel my energies towards things that will make him smarter and happier. Listening to NPR: yes. Watching American Idol: no. Spontaneous back massages:  yes. Spastically tapping utensils on pots and pans: no.

This afternoon delight is non-disruptive and highly edifying: a wet/dry healthy “shot” made of all good things. Dumbo had his magic feather, this is Julian’s magic muesli.

From top to bottom, behold: brown flax seeds, thick cut oats, cacao nibs, bee pollen, plum butter and matcha. The idea is that you mix it together, and the plum butter soaks and binds everything together into a potent mouthful not unlike an exotic and deconstructed Kind Bar.

Perhaps you are an adult who wants to eat your vices for breakfast. Or perhaps you are a sophisticated horse who’d like something special for his feedbag. Either way, this is for you.

The drama in this muesli is in the espresso powder, cocoa powder, cacao nibs and toasted walnuts — a burly punch of bitter and deep. There are some golden raisins and currants in there a little bit of a jammy chew, but this is for people who like their coffee black, their chocolate high in cacao, and their muesli humor very dry. It’s barely sweet, and the better for it.

This idea for this muesli came from a single rubied ingredient: pomegranate molasses, lustily purchased last night after my transglutaminase class at Brooklyn Kitchen.

What is this stuff? It’s like a fruity ketchup, enriched with sweetness and umami. It is a complexity agent, like hoisin. Grenadine is to pomegranate molasses as Vanessa Hutchins is to Penelope Cruz. You get it.

The muesli is basically a vehicle for this sweet, sour and berried ingredient. The base is wholesome and robust: rye, barley, oats, wheat, flax seed meal, and something I just whipped up in the Vitamix, quinoa flour. It is sweetened with a generous drip of PoMo and some maple syrup for woodsy depth. Dried currants and cranberries echo the pomegranate flavor.

The jamminess just had to be paired with nuts. Think peanut butter and jelly, dates stuffed with almonds, a pear frangipane tart. So I did what was natural and added some almond flour and pecans.

Like figs, pomegranates are ancient symbols of death, fertility, temptation and the natural jewels of the earth. I’d like to think there’s something mythical, or at the very least lyrical, about this dish of simply fruit, nut and grain.

A yum yum yum. What’s creamy besides ice cream? Pureed beans! This ice cream is the fever dream of my Vitamix party dips and the sly healthifications of Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious (see: Triple Chocolate Chickpea Cookies) and Rocco Dispirito’s Now Eat This! (see: Black Velvet Chocolate Squares, made with red beans).

There is, of course, red bean ice cream, but this dessert bean-cream is true to its name and consists of just frozen black beans, frozen bananas, and some spoonfuls of Dutch-process cocoa powder. And man is it glossy and rich and very satisfying. You can’t taste the black beans at all — they are all substance, bass, and baritone here.

Thus far, I’ve experimented with many types of non-cream/custard frozen dessert bases — bananas, tofu, yogurt. Now beans are on that list and the wheels are already spinning… Thinking most beans will be amenable — Vanilla Lavender Ice Cream with white beans anyone? — but wondering if there’s a limit. Sesame Honey Ice Cream (made with chick peas) — too much like hummus?