Women,
Wisdom
and Food
These Short Hills women have transformed their passion
for food into a livelihood, and a way of life.
WRITTEN BY LAURA ZINN FROMM
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNE-MARIE CARUSO
J
anet Schwamm is impressive to watch. A chemical engineer by training,
she has spent years volunteering and running the not-for-profit Interfaith
Food Pantry at the Church of the Epiphany in Orange, where she and a
team of volunteers feed up to 190 families every Wednesday morning
(except the first Wednesday of the month.) “Some people are sent by social
services, some are sent by the police department, some are sent by their
parole officers and some see the line and just pop in,” Schwamm says. “We’ve
also had a huge influx of people from Haiti since the earthquake.” On a recent
visit to the Food Pantry on a Wednesday morning, the church was buzzing with
people and Schwamm was fully in charge of making sure they all went home
with bags of food. You’d never know that when she wasn’t giving out groceries
and managing large groups of volunteers, she was also busy running a successful
business selling artisan granola.
When her youngest left for college, Schwamm had an epiphany: “I thought,
‘I’ve spent all these years feeding people, now it’s time for me to feed my family
and contribute to the bottom line.” She decided to start her own business so she
that she could also continue to run the Food Pantry. “I couldn’t walk away from
it,” she says. An avid home cook, she had been trying to develop a recipe for
matzah granola for the Jewish holiday of Passover and came up with five or six
formulations that incorporated whole-wheat matzah instead of oats: “I thought
this could be a business.” In March 2015, she launched Krunch Kitchen
Granola, enlisting her three children and husband to develop the website and
help with accounting. In addition to offering matzah granola year-round,
Schwamm also sells a variety of granola combinations, including granola with
quinoa and puffed brown rice, peanut butter, spices with dried apricots and tart
cherries, and dark chocolate and crystallized ginger. Schwamm is hoping she
can hire people who might otherwise be Food Pantry recipients to work for her
and make the granola. “This isn’t brain surgery, making granola,” she says.
“Once you have the recipe, it’s something you could teach someone who doesn’t
have other skills.” Her business is thriving. She receives orders from around the
country; many of those orders go to kids at college. “I’m cash flow positive,”
Schwamm says. “The majority of people who taste it buy it and the majority of
people who buy it, reorder.” (A one-pound bag of granola costs $14-$16; a onepound jar costs $16-$18. Krunch Kitchen granola doesn’t use processed sugar
and is sweetened with a small amount of organic maple syrup or agave syrup.) ➤
KRUNCH KITCHEN
GRANOLA FRUIT CRISP
65 minutes, including baking time
Servings: 6-8
INGREDIENTS:
Topping:
1-cup old-fashioned oats
3 tbsp. unsalted butter or coconut oil,
cut into pieces
1 tbsp. maple sugar or dark brown sugar
Pinch of kosher salt
1 cup granola, preferably Krunch Kitchen
Original, Spiced or Quinoa Granola
Filling:
4-6 apples, pears or combination of
both, peeled, cored and cut into 1/23/4” cubes
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. maple syrup (optional)
Zest and juice of 1 orange
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Butter the sides and bottom of an 8x8,
9x9 or oval baking dish with 1 ½-2”
sides.
PREPARE TOPPING:
Finely grind the oats in a food processor.
Pulse several times to ensure an even
consistency. Add the maple or other
sugar and salt, and pulse once or twice
to blend. Add the butter or coconut oil
and pulse a few times, until mixture
starts to look like wet sand. Add granola and pulse once or twice to blend,
but do not chop finely.
Mix all the filling ingredients together in
prepared dish. The filling should come
about 3/4 of the way up the sides.
Sprinkle topping over surface of the
fruit mixture, to lightly cover. Cover
with foil and bake for 45 minutes.
Uncover carefully and bake for
10 additional minutes.
Serve immediately or allow to cool
and serve at room temperature.
MAY 2016 MILLBURN • SHORT HILLS MAGAZINE
61