Banana Bread: An Intersection of Memories and Breakfast

It's grey here today and the forecast tells me that it's going to get cold for the next few days, hovering between -25C and -30C. There is supposed to be more snow, 10-20 cm of it. I am a little out of sorts, sore from having fallen on my way to the grocery yesterday. The roads are like reverse Etch-A-Sketches, this thick, heavy slush over a layer of polished ice. Whenever a car passes by, new lines appear over the old. It's oddly hypnotic if you stop to watch. Last night someone in a big truck got stuck in the road in front of the glazier next door. From one in the morning until shortly before two, the impatient staccato sounds of the motor revving and failing to get free annoyed me. I suppose I should admire the driver's persistence but I don't, having spent the better part of an hour thinking "Dude - it's after 1 am. You've been at this for too long already. Have some mercy on us, call a cab, go home, and come back in the morning." In short, I am a little grumpy. Not much, but enough that I don't really want to go out and deal with people right now.

I don't like being grumpy in the morning. It can throw off my entire day. Since I've discovered this, I have started trying to think my way around it, which (most days) isn't that hard. This morning I got up and made tea (it's a big pot day), and went through this odd little ritual I have for grumpy mornings where I smell all the teas I have in their colourful containers and just ask myself "What do you want?" It's kind of like making a peace offering to an unhappy roommate, even if it is just myself. This morning I surprised myself by picking "The Big Apple" from David's Teas, a tea I wasn't really thrilled with the first time I brewed it despite how incredible it smells in the store. Today its slight astringency suits. Funny how that happens. While the tea is steeping, I assemble breakfast. Two slices of spiced banana bread and two blood oranges. Blood oranges are one of my favourite things, and I eat them like they are going extinct when they are in season. There is something really plush about their colouring and their sweetness. And I like that you can pretend they are vampires if you want to.

The blood oranges are today's addition to a variation on my favourite breakfast, discovered while I was visiting Renaud in France in 2005. I fell in love with very simple cooking during that trip and breakfast was the simplest of all - staling bread with Nutella, jam, or honey, and plenty of tea and conversation. I remember those as some of the best mornings of my life, talking about games and books and assorted other things. On a return visit in 2011, breakfast was a slice of an amazing lemon poundcake and plenty of tea. This morning the memories are evoked with spiced banana bread and plenty of tea. And blood oranges, because I don't see the point of not eating the fruits you love when you have the chance. Memories are malleable. So are menus. So are moods. ^_^

My favourite banana bread recipe comes from Jean Paré's book 'Muffins and More' from the Company's Coming series. At one point I had all of these books, but this one is the only one I've retained because it is such an excellent grounding in quickbreads and those are probably my favourite things to make. The recipe is below - again, the ingredients are direct from the book, and the description has been guided by the book while incorporating my alterations and observations. 

Banana Bread

(p. 40)

Yields 1 loaf

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened*

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (~3 medium)

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup chopped walnuts or chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. 

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, beating until smooth. Blend in the mashed bananas. It's okay if they leave the batter a little lumpy.

In a second bowl, stir flour with the remainder of the dry ingredients. Incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, stirring only to moisten things enough that there are no streaks or patches of dry ingredients. Stir in the chocolate chips or nuts, if you are using. I omitted the nuts and chocolate for this recipe and added some ground roasted ginger, some cinnamon, and some cardamom**... probably about a teaspoon each? I couldn't say for sure, because I just shake the container until it smells right. That is probably not helpful. Sorry. When everything is finessed to your liking, scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan.

Bake for about one hour, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let stand for 10 minutes and then remove from pan and let cool. Wrap to store. Freezes really well. 

*I tend to sub out the butter in this recipe for nonfat greek yogurt, as I like how it helps the loaf darken and how it gives the crumb a bit more tooth. 

**You don't have to use these three, I just happen to love them. This loaf is a great blank canvas for playing around, so take that as an invitation to experiment.

The rest of the day will be school reading ("The Condition of Postmodernity" by David Harvey) possibly interrupted by a search for the battery charging cable for my Rebel. I think I'd like to be using that camera to take the pictures for this project. You'd think it'd be hard to lose something in 330 square feet. Apparently, not so much...