Brown Bananas: Think Twice Before Tossing

Still Life with Banana Bread

Two brown bananas. I was about to throw them out the way I've always done. Then I remembered a Chef Maili post on Facebook about banana bread. Two bananas was all you needed. Any more and you got a soggy bread -- a mistake amateur cooks often make.

It was a sign.

I felt the cooking urge rise up in me like sap. Sometimes being an addict is a beautiful thing. You can channel that obsessiveness in a positive, productive way.

I read Maili's recipe, hellbent on making my first banana bread ever that day (July 25th). Whoops. No electric handmixer. I drove to Target, picked up a simple Kitchen Aid five-speed electric handmixer. (White, which was $10 cheaper!) Picked up sour cream from Trader Joe's. First time buying that, too. I followed the recipe diligently, in a kind of hyper-focused trance. Cooking feels similar to a writing trance -- but it's more linear. More meditative. More now. The ephemeral quality of the result somehow adds to the art of cooking. Time is an ingredient. You've got to keep track and stay present, whereas in writing, you can drift in a daydream of timelessness. It's delicious, but disorienting. Cooking seems to be providing balance when I didn't even realize I was wobbly.

When the bread came out and it looked so perfect, I was stunned. It felt like magic.

I decided it was tea time in Topanga. Never mind the UK.

The next day, my friend Deanne Stillman, wondrous author of Twenty-Nine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines and the Mojave and Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West, came for lunch (more on that meal another time). For dessert, I offered her a slice of banana bread topped w/warm cherry sauce left over from an appetizer (more on that in another post) and a dollop of Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream. She said she couldn't stop thinking about it (after she devoured it). That it was light and airy compared to other banana breads.

Then lovely Serry Osmena -- who has the enviable job of representing international vineyards and other high-end gourmet products -- dropped by later that day with her Croatian boyfriend Devor and her two beautiful sons. Half the banana bread remained. Serry said the boys didn't really like banana bread. Yet the two boys ate it all.

When I was a full-blown love junkie, I isolated. Even when I did hang out with friends, I wasn't really there. I was often distracted. Distraught. Obsessed. I didn't make where I lived a home. It was my lair, the place I withdrew with lovers, or where I hid -- alone and depressed. I didn't cook so I couldn't offer meals created out of my environment. The place wasn't fully alive. It wasn't yet perfumed with the scent of cooking, of fresh fruits, spices, pastas and sauces. I was ashamed at the modesty of my place, and clueless about how to welcome guests. Now I've fixed up the deck so it's welcoming in a boho rustic style. Now people visit and I can feed them. Pure pleasure.

Next time you see two brown bananas, maybe you'll think twice. Ripeness is all. Here's the recipe. Try it and see what happens.
Maili's Banana Bread

If I can cook, anyone can.
RR
xo