banana bread

My husband, who has been out of town on a consulting job, has expressed the need for me to show him I love him. So today, I took those black bananas, soft as jello, and mashed them in a cup, added crispy walnuts and dark raisins, eggs, butter, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda, and made banana bread. It's cooling on the rack as I write and the wonderful smell of it fills the rooms and expands my lungs without the added weight of calories to my stomach. That, unfortunately, will come soon enough, when I flip over the bread, release it from the pan and cut into the browned crust for that tender taste of quick bread, made from scratch. It's my first baking experience since April/ankle accident and I guess it marks another milestone, just in time for the holiday baking season to commence.

I read a great story (newsletter@americanpublicmedia.org)today about the woman who championed the celebration of Thanksgiving as a holiday (1836) and wrote the poem, "Mary Had a Little Lamb." She, Sarah Josepha Hale, wrote about Thanksgiving as part of a novel that protested slavery, pre-Civil War by about 40 years. I had no prior knowledge of this story and I am trying to spread the word about it.

Sometimes my grandmother would also serve banana bread at the Thanksgiving table. We always had white butterfly dinner rolls and, of course, other carbohydrates filled the table as entrees and desserts. It pales, though, in comparison to the description Sarah Hale details in the excerpt on the web and reminds me that the harvest time was the end of the growing season and the preparation for hibernating for the winter. Not so for us desert dwellers: this is just the beginning of our favorite time of the year--seven to eight months (if we are lucky) of energizing coolness, sunshine and monsoon winters which spread the soil for spring's desert blooms.

I know I am getting older (as if creaking knees and right ankle, sore back, greying hair, mood and sleep swings don't provide enough proof)because the days, weeks and months are passing so quickly. I want this season to sloooooow down. Since tomorrow is/would have been my mom's birthday and, for me, is packed with "to do" tasks, Tuesday will mark my rememberance of her with a visit to the Tucson Botanical Garden. I will find a shady spot and read some poems or maybe bring along one of her many diaries and read an excerpt on one of her birthdays. Two years ago, her last with us, we had Lucky Wishbone chicken and she devoured fried onion rings, two at a time. I had baked cupcakes with caramel icing and Donna brought ice cream so we feasted on the patio in autumnal good humor.

Many things have changed since then and that is how life keeps us alert: nothing escapes the rule of impermanence. But I can always count on the smell of banana bread to bring me warm memories that fill my soul.