Scripts, Recipes and Banana Bread

I love, love this photograph of my parents. Dad's tie and baby face aside, it's mom's sassy scarf and swingy coat that make it for me. And she's doing this thing that she still does in photos where she tries not to smile. Because her smiles wreath her whole face so that her eyes crinkle and it looks like she's squinting. She really hates that. Dad looks somber because, as a general rule, that's how all the men in his family smile in photos. It's true.


Exhibit A and B: That my brother. He's stoic. And my nephew; he's stoic, too.

I came across the airport photo, taken shortly after my parents were married, a couple years ago when I was looking for some things to put together for my own wedding. And I tried to imagine what it was like for mom to get engaged, plan a wedding, move from a small town in one state to set up house on a farm in another without her mother to assuage any fears and offer guidance. There are moments when I'm overcome by the enormity of what it meant for her to lose her mother so young, because we inherit things, you see. Brown eyes. Wavy hair. Long fingers and toes. And scripts, generations in the writing, explaining who should be loved, how and how much.

I don't know too much about my mom's dad, other than that he owned a filling station, drove a school bus, took his coffee scalding hot and was generally disliked by grandma's family. He always kept a picture of grandma on his bookshelf, though, and when he'd see me looking at it, he'd say "She was a beautiful woman." I remember that, and how he'd pat me on the back and say "That's my girl" when I'd give him a hug and a kiss at the end of a visit. Other than that, grandpa never had much to say, and I’m certain he must have been at a loss when he was left a widower with two barely teenage daughters.

The same way mom was often at a loss with me. I don’t think I was a particularly difficult teenager, just a typical one with the usual sorts of angst, but mom never had the opportunity to be a typical teenager – she was too busy keeping house, going to school and working at this café that I hear tell had the best waffles, which were served with ice cream (!) – to have time for usual angst. So she had to improvise her way through the gaps in an unedited draft of motherhood, and it took us some time to figure things out.

In the meantime, we had some epic battles, many of which took place in the kitchen and several of those over 4-H. Mom, as I’ve said before, is an exacting cook, but I imagine that a young girl suddenly in charge of maintaining a house and feeding her family would have to be. Having a recipe and following it to the letter must have been a lifeline – and offered a small moment of connection to her mom.

That being said, I’ve made a few adaptations to this banana bread recipe, which is one of the first things I remember making entirely on my own.

Banana Nut Bread (courtesy of my mom)

1. Sift:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

*I also sifted in two teaspoons of cinnamon; one would probably do just fine, but I’m hooked on the Vietnamese cinnamon from Penzey’s.

2. In a separate bowl, cream:
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar

Then, add 2 eggs, one at a time.

*I used a 1/3 cup of unsalted butter instead of shortening (in general, you need about 1/2 cup butter for every cup of sugar when creaming, so this came together with a little more mess -- i.e. sugar flying out of the bowl -- than usual). I’ve seen a recipe that calls for a 1/4 cup of melted butter to be stirred in at the very end, but I'm not sure how it would affect the texture and structure of the bread, though I recently made a banana bread that didn’t have any butter or shortening and it was wonderful -- so I might try that melted butter thing next time.

3. In a separate bowl, beat:
1 cup bananas (about three)
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon vinegar

*I’ve always wondered about the vinegar; I honestly thought it did something particular to the bananas, so I asked mom about it. She said it was supposed to be stirred in with the milk first, to make it more like buttermilk...I just went with straight-up buttermilk; I had it on hand. And I added a generous teaspoon of vanilla, though you could also put in the same amount of dark rum, if you were so inclined.

4. Mix the banana mixture in with the creamed mixture alternately with the flour mixture. Stir until just combined and add in 1/2 cup nuts of your choice. Bake at 325 degrees for 60 minutes.

*I decided to forego the nuts in favor of a 1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips. And I’m not sorry; you won’t be either. In fact, if you’re really feeling crazy, you could add both. I also sprinkled the top of the loaves with some cinnamon sugar before baking.

5. Makes two loaves in smaller pans, but baking time will have to be adjusted accordingly.

P.S. Maybe Yeti would like this version! Nuts are optional.

*I have no doubt Yeti would like this version; she downed an entire loaf the last time I made banana bread, and apparently mom is still amused. While I understand this is part of the danger of having a creature that’s eyelevel with the counters living in your house, I was pretty incensed. I (gently) whapped her on the head with a sock and called her a name that wasn’t very nice, but didn’t involve swear words or taking the Lord’s name in vain.

Once, when my brother and I had pushed mom to the uttermost limits of her patience, she called us a bunch of dorks and deadheads. But I’ll save that treasure for another day, and leave you instead with this lovely, lovely glimpse of spring I found peeking out of my flowerbed last week.