Bananaville

I eat a banana every day. In the summer, I blend it into a smoothie; in the cooler weather (i.e., NOW) I just peel and eat one before supper.

My dad used to do this, too--daily banana--though he usually had his for breakfast. A healthful start to his day, a day which soon deteriorated (in his later years) into sordid habits--like eating a jar of dry-roasted peanuts while watching whatever football game happened to be on. Oh, did Dad love football! Didn't care who was playing--or what level. He was there. Oh, and nothing washes peanuts down better than beer, you know?

Bananas are really cheap right now--which is not a good sign for banana workers. We went out last night to get three greener ones to replace the three Yellow Softies that weren't going to make it through the rest of the week. Forty-eight cents. (A Starbucks grande Pike will cost you more than $2 these days.) (And don't ask me about the price of a pumpkin-spice latte: never had one.)

Okay, we usually buy seven bananas on Sunday when we do our weekly grocery shopping; I try to get a mix of hard-green and lighter to last me the week. But this week it didn't work--thus, the trip out to the store after supper yesterday for three Green(er) Guys.

So ... what to do with the Yellow Softies (YS).

Joyce and I both hate to throw food away (we eat leftovers almost every night--which seems impossible, I know). But there was no way I was going to eat those YS. I could have made smoothies with them, but, as I said, they chill me too much on chilly days. (Wuss!)

So, I thought I'd try making a banana bread. As many of you know, I make bread all the time--and have done so for more than forty years. But I've never made a banana bread.

So I got out my mom's old Better Homes & Gardens cookbook--the one with the red-and-white plaid cover)--and checked it out. (Pic is of ours.) Looked pretty simple.

I did a few substitutions: local honey for sugar, a mixture of flours (oat, wheat, white). But otherwise I followed it pretty strictly, smooshing the bananas with a potato-masher (just an idea I had at the time--so I went with it).

Into the oven the mixture went--a mixture, by the way, whose texture I had no "feel" for ... how sticky? how dry? We shall see.

It said to bake them 45-50 min.; took a bit longer for me. But I didn't want to pull it out of the oven until the piece of spaghetti I used to test the interior came out (mostly) dry.

And now the bread its out, cooling on a rack, and I'll probably slice a (tiny!) piece for lunch ... and if it doesn't pass the Taste Test? That roaring sound you hear will be me having a tantrum, mixed with the sound of the disposer.