Good Old-Fashioned Nanner Bread

For two weeks now, I have intended to make some banana bread. I finally found myself this morning with not only time on my hands, but some extremely smushy bananas as well. I have been holding off on this for a while because I didn't have the perfect loaf pan in which to make the bread. Aluminum pans, which are the only ones I have seen at yard sales, are too thin and will, mom has convinced me, leach the aluminum into the food, thus increasing the risk of Alzheimer's. Sure, it may not be true, buy why would I risk the health of my son and my husband?

I was flat out afraid to go into one of the fancy kitchen stores to get the type of pan I would need. The budget is too tight right now (thank you IRS and county tax commissioners) for me to be set free in a store in which the temptation would cause me physical pain. If I were bodily dragged into the middle of a shopping mall, I would fight my way free to the nearest exit without spending a dime. If I were taken to Rolling Pin, or Williams-Sonoma, I would most likely break down and cry if I weren't able to go on a shopping spree.

Thanking God for small miracles though, I came upon The Perfect Heavy Steel Loaf Pan at Publix, of all places, earlier this week. I have made a Southern Living recipe for Cream Cheese Banana-Nut Muffins, which were exsquisite, but I've never just made plain old banana bread, and I was excited over the prospect. Mymother used to make it when I was a kid, and I think she may have even brought it to me at school on my birthday when I was in second grade. I was attending a wonderful hippie school at the time, and we were graced with incredible desserts on kid's birthdays, much unlike the nasty store-bought cupcakes that parents pass out at school these days.

I found a recipe in The Art of Southern Cooking, a surprisingly simple cookbook from 1969 that I inherited from my late Great-Aunt Doris. There is even an inscription in the front that I will have to ask her husband about: "From Mrs. Florence Wade Anderson, Sept 13, 1972."

Preparing the ingredients only took about 5 minutes, and the bread came out wonderfully. It is moist without being too wet; and it rose, browned, and held together perfectly when sliced. I remember one banana bread that mom made in which we had to eat it with a spoon, but maybe she had used a banana pudding recipe accidentally.

BANANA BREAD

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups flour, sifted
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup mashed ripe banana
• 1 cup chopped pecans

1. Mix butter, sugar and eggs together.
2. Sift dry ingredients together, and fold into butter mixture.
3. Stir in mashed bananas and nuts.
4. Bake in a 9x5 loaf pan at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes.

Somebody call Short Stack and tell her to drop by if she's hungry.