Friday's Letter

Dear Mr. Veen:  last night when I poked you @ 2:30a.m. to tell you it was time to get up for the Royal Wedding you didn't move.  I was impressed that you'd even pretended to be interested at all.  Dear too ripe bananas on my counter:  how many times do I have to buy you and watch you turn black to realize the people in this house do not seem to eat you?  Apparently baking banana bread is in my very near future.  Dear certain Hip Hop musicians:  why do you insist on ruining a perfectly decent song with a ridiculously trashy music video?  I was going to buy your music for my 10 year old son but now I refuse.  Annoying.  Dear Ella:  last night you crawled out of bed to join me on the couch just as princess Kate was walking down the aisle.  Call me a romantic but losing a few hours of sleep was a small price to pay for making that kind of memory.  And last to Mr. Veen:  want to go on a date tonight?

It's a classic

For me banana bread has always been a comfort food.  I can remember walking in the house after being at school all day and immediately being enveloped by the sweet aroma of freshly baked banana bread.  I loved to have a thick slice with margarine for a snack and always favored the middle section of the loaf, even better if the top layer was slightly under baked.  My mom sometimes put walnuts in her banana bread, but as a kid I preferred it plain, no need to mess with the simple goodness in my opinion.
I'm not sure if the love of banana bread came from my moms or dads side of the family, but I do know that my dad always packed a banana in his lunch (and still does), and my Grandma Hay faithfully kept bananas in stock on her kitchen counter.  It seems Grandma thought it was a general sign of heath and well being for a person to have a banana a day.  So instead of  "an apple a day..." it was "a banana a day keeps the doctor away".  

For me, bananas are only good a couple of ways:  in banana bread, smoothies or fresh but only if they are in the delicate half green but not too green - half yellow but no brown spots stage.  And since that very elusive condition comes and goes so quickly with bananas, it's no wonder that we end up making quite a bit of banana bread in our house.  And that's exactly what happened this past weekend.

As per usual I tried a new recipe out with the banana bread.  And you know what?  I actually didn't like it as well as my mom's classic stand-by version.  I guess with some things you just don't mess with the best!

Mom's Banana Bread:

Preheat oven to 365

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs beaten
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3 small bananas or 2 large bananas mashed
1 tsp. vanilla
optional:  nuts

Cream together sugar and butter.  Add the eggs.  Alternate adding the flour and soda.  Finally add the mashed bananas, vanilla and nuts if using.

Bake at 365 for 1 hour
P.S.  I understand that bananas are somewhat of a controversial fruit.  Many people have absolutely no use for them in any of their forms.  So in order to ease the eruption of disdain that may result over my posting a banana recipe I'll end with this video...enjoy:)