DISASTER BAKING #4: Chocolate Chunk Tahini Banana Bread to Fuel the Work
Dear Disaster Bakers,
How about some good news? No, I mean it. How about, like, one piece of good news? One shred. Because I have 52 tabs open at the moment and four of them are about crimes and three of them are different Everlane sweaters that all look like ones I own and six of them are research so that I can formulate a clever, but informed response to this MSNBC tweet that quotes Vice President Mike Pence who has decided to pontificate about antisemitism. Shut up, Mike. We could have used this disdain 19 months ago when Trump decided to call Nazis "fine people." Now it's time to be quiet, and turns the mic over to those of us who have never enabled white supremacists or an HIV outbreak.
But back to the good news. Or the good new—singular—since we've decided we just need one. Let's see.
Well, the trailer for Frozen 2 is out, but the movie isn't due in theaters until November 2019 and should have been called Frozen: Ice, Ice Baby. So I don't think it counts.
And then there's this Jezebel piece, which seems divine based on its title alone: "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 9 Premiere Makes a Strong Case for Class War." That said, I'm still behind on the series so I can't read or vouch for it.
At least I can share that a few weeks back I tweeted about what's become of the New York Times Vows section, which has been so diminished in recent weeks that I expect tumbleweeds to roll across the screen as I scroll. And lo and behold, Choire Sicha, who edits the Styles section and oversees Vows, replied and apologized with this article. Not sure it's "good news" since Choire made me zero promises about the fate of Vows, but it is a report about nudist nuptials. Choire, we're even. For now.
What about this: This week I made chocolate-chunk tahini banana bread and spoke to a woman in elected office who sounds like a human.
Impossible to believe, but true.
Her name is Jennifer Carroll Foy. She has served in the Virginia House of Delegates since 2017 and ran that race while pregnant with twins! A lot of people in Virginia think she'd make an excellent governor, which is a topic of conversation at the moment since the man in that position and the two men who would be next in line to replace him are all mired in various controversies. (Catch up on it all here.) So! People think a woman should come and fix it. Clean up in Aisle Virginia.
In our conversation, Foy gave me the impression that she is prepared to step up. But her appointment is at least one complex legal battle off. In the meantime, it's this tidbit that I've carried with me: "We call out blackface and discrimination and hate because it affects people's lives. And the antidote is not just statements, but legislation. That is my job. That's what I'm charged to do."
Statements make news and words matter. Do I have to reiterate that? Words matter. But how divine to listen to a person in a position of actual power acknowledge that it's possible to do more than issue nice soundbites. The press rewards the Notes app, the caustic tweet, the shouted retort. I get it! The incentives are all off! But politicians don't need to hash out their stances on Twitter. And we should have more hard conversations off social media. Unlike us, who can't do much more than snark and protest, the people we put in office can make laws.
Attention elected officials who fuck up and hurt people, men who harass their coworkers, bosses who throw binders at their staffers: Redemption is in the work. "The antidote is not just statements, but legislation." Apologies are not good enough. Do the job.
Then make sesame-topped banana bread.
Chocolate Chunk Tahini Banana Bread
Servings: 1 loaf, which I cut into 10 enormous slices. These were obscene portions but/and I recommend it.
Distractability: 4
Scratchpad: Two points for the chocolate chunks. Two points for the sweet release that is bananas, pulverized into a pulp. One point for the unexpected use of tahini, an ingredient that improves most situations and smells so sublime it almost makes me forget all the bad tweets we sent this week. Minus a point for prescience that banana bread requires. Who knows when a crisis will hit? What if I don't have week-old bananas when it does?
Notes: Brown bananas are essential to good banana bread, and that's rule number one. Do not even attempt to do this with Post-it-colored bananas, let alone green ones. The bread (and we do call it bread, which implies healthfulness) will be bad, and I will not be held accountable! Do not blame me for the muddled, bitter bread!
Also, I have made a million banana breads. Plain ones. Walnut-studded ones. Peanut butter ones. Swirled ones. Chocolate ones. Double chocolate ones. Ones with sliced bananas on the top, which look nice on Instagram but make each bite taste a little like baby food. This is the best of all the ones. Dense, but not leaden. Packed with chocolate, pumped up with sesame for an almost toasted flavor. Sour cream to keep it moist. Oil, not butter to make sure it still taste good (even better?) 24 hours later. This bread can't fix Twitter or cure antisemitism or end racism or stamp out faux pietism in the GOP, but anecdotal evidence suggests it can improve most IRL situations and please coworkers and friends!
Ingredients:
2-3 brown bananas (approx. 250 grams)
1/3 cup (75 grams) sour cream
2 eggs
1/2 cup (110 grams) vegetable or canola oil
2 tablespoons (32 grams) tahini (I like the brand Soom)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (320 grams) brown sugar, packed
1 3/4 cups (210 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (120 grams) chocolate chunks
2 tablespoons (15 grams) sesame seeds
To-Do List:
Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan.
Preheat oven to 350F.
In a medium bowl, mash bananas. That frustration over our broken political discourse will not work itself out, so get in there. Use that fork! Once the bananas have been pulverized, whisk in sour cream, eggs, oil, tahini, and vanilla extract. Once well blended, whisk in brown sugar until the mixture is smooth-ish.
In a smaller bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Whisk flour mixture into wet ingredients until just combined. Fold in chocolate chunks.
Pour batter into loaf pan and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Bake bread 60-75 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, save traces of melted chocolate. (As in, no wet batter.) Let cool-ish. Then eat. This bread, which is breakfast food, will keep for about four or five days at room temperature.
DistractiLinks
"The New Season of Chef's Table Is Here to Satisfy Your Food-Porn Cravings"
Happy Valentine's Day! Not sure which bad rom com to watch? How about a superlative episode of television instead? Like, for example, The O.C. Season 1, Episode 19?
Fork Over That Dough Bra
Homeless women need bras. That's the upshot of this article in the Washington Post, which profiles Dana Marlowe, a woman who has distributed more than 500,000 bras and 2.5 million pads and tampons to people who need them. You can do this, too! Third Love, which makes bras I #nospon love, has this helpful rundown on how to donate used bras. Odds are also good that a local homeless shelter would be glad to accept them.
As one person quoted in the Post points out, most homeless people "struggle just to provide basic necessities for themselves, and new, proper-fitting bras just aren't a priority when you're focused on getting housed, finding employment, or finding your next meal." But a clean bra that fits can make someone feel more confident at a job interview or just more comfortable in the midst of a million other crises.