Issue #23: Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread for Right Now
Dear Disaster Bakers,
This newsletter’s tagline was and remains: “In times of crisis, preheat.” In the centuries since it launched in October 2018, we have turned to our ovens to deal with: injustice, corruption, foreign interference in our elections, fascism, a buffet of generalized hate and intolerance, inequities of all stripes, sexism, a government shutdown, white supremacists, the crisis on our border, domestic terror, the warming planet, and voter suppression, among other horrors.
I am a platinum-level worrier and I read Severance like a good media person. (It is about a fungal infection that, uh, sweeps the planet and wipes out most of the world’s population. It’s also about capitalism and the simple wonder of street-cart coffee. Recommend!)
But when I contemplated the disasters that would fire up our ovens and brains, I have to admit a pandemic was not on the Bingo card. Congratulations, world. I had never WebMD’d this one.
I know the newsletter has been on hiatus for a few months. Over the summer, I blamed its absence on training for the marathon, which I ran in November. It’s true that one has less time to bake when weekends are reserved for getting through (and recovering from) 18-mile runs.
But after the race was over, I hesitated. I just had so much to do—there was work to finish and pieces to edit and commutes to endure and dinners to eat like civilized humans in restaurants. There were packed train cars to wedge into! The sheer number of hours I used to spend in the closer-than-six-feet presence of other people—the mind reels!
Of course, that’s over now. And although I am working from home and feel quite fortunate to have a job, I have the time now that I didn’t (or felt I didn’t) in the fall to cook. I have, in fact, nothing but time to bake and roast and blend. This week, I made almond butter from scratch because I was out of peanut butter and am determined not to shop for groceries more than once a week. I made challah buns because I can. (I didn’t stock up on toilet paper when this started, but I did have the foresight to purchase six packets of yeast.)
Sequestered in a small studio apartment, I have become a metropolitan homesteader. I’m a domestic goddess, who still doesn’t have a stand mixer. I’m a woman, standing in front of a so-so oven, asking it to heat up to 400F degrees and remain there, please. In other words, sweeties, I’m back.
Here is the part in a normal newsletter where I summarize some fraction of the latest bad news. But I think most of us are up to date on that. You’ve read about lethal testing failures and Trump’s alternating ineptitude and malevolence and New York’s overwhelmed paramedics. You’ve read about the particular price that survivors of domestic violence will pay under quarantine. You know what happened in Milan and Wuhan—and what’s happening still. You’ve scrolled with gritted teeth, the understanding dawning that this will get so much worse before it gets even a fraction better.
We don’t know, though, the precise path the virus will take or how our bodies or the bodies of our loved ones will cope with it, if we get sick. We have no idea what our lives will look like when it’s over.
I wouldn’t want to sugarcoat it—despite the fact that “sugarcoating it” is kind of what we do here. But I also don’t think this newsletter needs to pile on extra terror, with cherries on top. Because if you’re a feeling human (a qualification which excludes 100% of the current administration), you’re already going through quite a bit.
(If you’re a feeling human and not going through quite a bit, I would like to borrow your dog, Xanax prescription, and/or Transcendental Meditation practice.)
So let’s make a little deal: We bake, we watch Real Housewives of New Jersey, we shake our fists toward the heavens, we work out only when we feel like it and not because someone made us feel bad about ourselves, and we do our best for these next few weeks or months. This newsletter will continue to be a space for sorrow, rage, and nut butter, I promise. But this newsletter can’t vote or donate to desperate people or source PPE. It can’t imagine a better, fairer America. That’s up to you.
In the meantime, there’s banana bread.
Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread
Servings: 10 slices, which, in a two-person household means two servings. Thanks.
Distractability: 3
Scratchpad: Two points for the warm scent of banana and vanilla extract, two points for the presence of molten chocolate, minus a point for not containing within it the new Rihanna music we could use right now.
Notes: This banana bread combines elements from the classic, unimpeachable Food & Wine recipe that I grew up with and a newer version from Bon Appetit. I much prefer banana bread recipes made with oil, rather than butter, which I think keeps loaves fresher and moist longer. I also deeply do not believe in adding spices to banana bread. This is an uncluttered recipe for cluttered times. Save the cinnamon for coffee cake.
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups (135 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup (150 grams) dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup canola oil
1/3 cup (75 grams) plain, whole-milk Greek yogurt or sour cream
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 or 3 ripe, spotted bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chunks or chips (non-optional, OK, fine, optional)
1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)
To-Do List:
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease loaf pan—most standard sizes will work. Line with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, and salt.
In another bowl, whisk brown sugar, canola oil, Greek yogurt, and eggs. Add bananas and vanilla. Mix to combine.
Fold in chocolate chunks and pecans. Also, walnuts work, if you’d prefer those.
Scrape batter into prepared pan, then bake for 50-60 minutes until the bread is well-bronzed and a tester inserted into the middle comes out gleaming with melted chocolate, but not raw cake! I baked mine for I think about five minutes longer than I needed to. Don’t be like me.
Let cool. Slice and eat. In the morning, make French toast banana bread. Because no time like right now to be obscene.
Distractions, Diversions, What I’m Eating for Dinner
Watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a film about longing, romance, art, and the senses we’re not allowed to use right now. Streaming on Hulu.
Also join me in watching all of Nancy Meyers’ movies in rapid succession, a perfect #quarantreat that my wonderful boyfriend suggested because real men love The Intern. Available for rental on Amazon Prime.
Read Dept. of Speculation, a book I somehow missed when it came out in 2014. And thank goodness, because this is a novel that has met its moment. It requires reader concentration, because the narrative is told in fragments. But it’s also short and addictive enough to be read in one breath. An ideal reading experience for this era.
Feast on the work of Candida Höfer, who’s been capturing absence in spaces for decades. Then remember what pleasure awaits us with Thomas Struth’s Museum Photographs series, a reminder that gathering is an art, too.
Meanwhile, make a meal out of red lentil soup with lemon, plus the flakiest biscuits on the side. Later in the week, eat glorified pancakes for dinner. Who the hell is going to tell you not to?
Fork Over That Dough
When tens of millions of people in need sudden, urgent help, it feels insane to send just one or two recommendations. This week, I donated to Joe Coffee’s relief fund and Citymeals on Wheels.
So let’s just use those two as a formula: Give to a business that matters to you, that feels like a staple in your neighborhood, that you don’t want to imagine your city without. And support an organization that’s going to get essential goods to the people who need it most—whether that’s seniors, the homeless, incarcerated people, essential workers, or frontline health care providers.
Oh, and
I missed this. You’re wonderful. Stay safe, send recommendations, requests, and questions, and let’s do this again soon, OK? Also, someone check on Ina Garten.