Yeah, I have a new standard breakfast. It’s about a half cup of Milk & Honey Granola and some milk. Easy, tasty, local (I think), fast, and not bad for you. Notice that I didn’t say good for you; that would probably be stretching it given the amount of brown sugar I detect.

I first saw this at Stanley’s Fruit and Vegetables on North and Elston a few months back and grabbed the nice, resealable bag on a whim. Since then I’ve been a mission to find granola as good and I can’t match it. I like my breaky sweet, as you know, and they don’t short you on the sugar. But the grains are substantial and it’s pretty nutty, so it balances out the sweetness nicely.

It just feels right eating this. It’s granola, man. People in California and Colorado eat it all the time so it must be good for you. And it’s low impact. When I finish my morning coffee I just dump some granola in the same cup, pour some milk over it, and start shoveling. That saves me a rinse and some dirty dishes.

Now about it being local, I have to do some digging on that. Technically, to be local, I guess all the ingredients need to be from local farms. But I think most almonds come from California, which probably officially rules out this being acceptable as part of the localvore challenge put on by the Green City Market. But the oats and certainly the dried cherries could be local. I checked their granola specific website and it does not speak to the localness. Oh well. Hopefully there is a caring, conscientious, born-and-bred Chicago starving artist in the Milk & Honey kitchen bagging it and loading up their VW van for delivery to Stanley’s. However, if that was the case I doubt they could keep up with the demand from all of the local Whole Foods and Treasure Islands. I’m just NOT going to ask the question for fear of taking some of the local luster off of my granola. Ignorance is bliss.

The Milk & Honey Cafe itself is pretty good. Here’s what Yelp has to say about it. When I go I usually get an egg dish of some sort. I’ve never had the granola live, in-house.

It’s a great atmosphere in the summer with the outdoor patio and such, but it gets crowded fast on weekends. It’s Division Street, so what do you expect?