Way-too-good banana bread

As long as there's sluggish mornings, strong coffee, voracious, mid-afternoon appetites, and freezers loaded with forgotten fruit, there shall be banana bread. Hallelujah and amen.

I have never made a banana bread I didn't like (note I've said made, not met. I've definitely had horrible banana bread, particularly from h/motel continental breakfast buffets). Moreover, never have I liked banana bread as much on the first day as on the second day. I'd go so far as to say that even the times when the bread is a little on the plain or dry side (the times I skimp on the fat), I like it even more when I can toast it and spread peanut butter on it. It's horribly decadent.

This one, though, needs no doctoring. You could try, but you might die. This is the version Molly Wizenburg published in her book A Homemade Life. It contains not only chocolate, but also crystallized ginger and full-fat yogurt. The recipe is here: Banana Bread with Chocolate and Crystallized Ginger

I'm glad I've finally gotten around to reading this book. I've long been a fan of Molly's blog, Orangette, since around the time I started blogging all those years ago. I've often felt a kind of kinship with her - she's just four years older than I am, she was raised as a sort-of only child, she met her man through her blog, she is in love with Paris and writes nostalgically though she's only in her 30s, oh and obviously she loves making, eating and blogging about food. Now that I'm reading the book I am finding all sorts of other things that make me wish we were friends in real life. I guess that's how she gets into the fancy mags and is dubbed with such titles as "the world's best food blogger." Lots of people feel that way. So make that kinship-slash-aspiration.

We had the last of the bread today, just less than one week after baking it. Depending on your sensibilities you'll think we've practiced incredible restraint or that we're a couple of fatties. Judge how you'd like.

In other news, I bought Margot a cat bed and she's taken to it famously.