Two Introductions

First of all: Our newest employee. Saw Kay, a refugee originally from Myanmar (Burma), arrived in Providence about 4 months ago along with his wife and 5 children after spending years in a camp in Thailand. Saw and his wife Sa Nay are Karen—one of the ethnic minority groups who have been persecuted for years by Burma’s military government. Aside from one other family who arrived with them, they are—if you can imagine this!—the

only

speakers of a language called Karen Sgaw in the state of Rhode Island. Saw does speak some Burmese and seems to understand a bit of Thai, but he and I are learning to communicate primarily through pictures and charades along with a lot of smiles and a resilience for being misunderstood. The day I hired him, I wasn’t really sure he understood that I was hiring him or whether he wanted to be hired, but sure enough he showed up at my office at 3:45 and off we went. One thing he does understand is hard work; he clearly enjoys making granola and is even learning to joke around with the rest of us. He even seems to like the granola and gladly takes a pound home for his family. To learn more about refugees from Burma, check out [link at CAL removed].

Secondly: Our newest product line, which we are calling Muesli, is a lower-cal, Swiss style breakfast version of our granola. Like many of you, Geoff and I tend to think of our granola as a snack food as much as breakfast, which is why we put so much effort into keeping it chunky. For my own breakfast, I’ve developed a technique of sifting out the “the dust” (as Geoff and I call it) from the bottom of the bag and mixing it in a bowl with a handful of dry oats. The oats cut the sweetness, lower the calories, plus I love the taste. If I’m feeling really ambitious, I’ll even pre-toast a week’s supply of the oats in the oven for a about a half hour to bring out their flavor. Believe me, I always feel very Swiss when I do this—and now for an introductory sale price of 4.95 (Original)/5.95 (Recipe of the month) a pound you can too. Providence Muesli uses the same recipes as our chunky granola and is mixed at a ratio of three parts un-chunky granola per one part toasted organic oats.