Just Another Bananas Friday Night

For reasons I'll reveal in an upcoming post that I'm just polishing up, Friday night just isn't what it used to be. Our newlywed residence is located in the heart of Chicago's Gold Coast, appropriately named Division street. The street name always rang true to me because it's nestled confusingly between quiet, tree-lined streets filled with gorgeous old brownstones from generations past and the most ridiculous bar district in the city. It's hard to describe, but on weekend mornings when I wake up early to take a peaceful walk to the farmer's market at the end of our block, I find not only the finest seasonal fruit, but the following:

- pink boas
- plastic necklaces of male genitalia
- 100,000 cigarette butts
- likely, vomit

The division between my former Division street (though NEVER a pink boa) self and my newlywed self was never more apparent than on Friday night. I dug out my "a stick of butter is the meaning of life'"Paula Deen cookbook, a gift from Mama Pasz, and made banana bread. On Friday night.

Banana bread recipe below that you'll probably not make on a Friday night.

Banana Bread
From Paula Deen's The Lady & Son's, Too cookbook
1 stick of butter, at room temperature
1 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
3 ripe bananas, mashed

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease (again, butter) 9X5 inch loaf pan. In a mixing bowl, combine butter and sugar. Mix well. Add the salt, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking soda, baking powder and bananas. Mix well. Pour the batter in to the prepared pan and bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the middle clean.