Consider the Banana

An old and dear friend and I recently got into a modern-day kerfuffle -- over Facebook -- about the BP oil gusher. He scoffed at my Liking someone else's status update suggesting we boycott BP. His thinking is that if you want to boycott something, boycott oil, which is so entrenched in modern culture as to be an almost impossible boycott. My retort was that, my feelings about BP notwithstanding, oil dependence can't be cut off cold turkey, but there are steps to take that can lessen the current, frightening dependence. I don't agree that because oil is impossible to eliminate for almost every American, we should throw out the baby with the bathwater and just live with the current dependence. Most of us work jobs outside the home where we have to drive to work; that doesn't mean we have to do it in a Hummer.

I was struck when I saw An Inconvenient Truth (oh, Al and Tipper, I'm so heartsick things didn't work out!) that the first tip at the end of the film for making a difference was changing to fluorescent bulbs. Changing a light bulb? That's it? But it's little changes like switching light bulbs can make huge differences. A couple winters ago Phil turned the thermostat down a degree while we were awake and in the house, and turned it down significantly when we were going to bed or heading out. Our monthly bill went down 15% almost instantly.

Likewise, I never accept plastic bags in stores. This has been awkward when a quick dash to the grocery without tote bags in hand has ended in buying more than I expected, and having to precariously balance my haul out of the store. But if everyone in America just started using tote bags, we'd eliminate the annual need for the 12 million gallons of oil needed to make the bags we consume in an average year. (Click here for some other sobering plastic-bag stats.)

In looking at some of the changes Phil and I have made in the past couple years, I think of the banana. I know, I know. Bananas are harvested under often inhumane conditions and shipped halfway around the world to get to my Fresh Market. I know; if I truly was making a difference, I wouldn't eat bananas. But hear me out.

It used to be we'd buy a bunch, and eat them until they got spots. Then Phil and I would wait for the other to eat the spotty ones, which didn't happen. So sometimes I would throw the old bananas wholesale into the freezer with the intention of eventually thawing them out and squooshing out the contents to make banana bread. But I rarely make banana bread, so would generally find an unseemly chocolate-colored lump in the back of the freezer many many months later. Often, we'd just throw out the old bananas.

In the last year, we've started composting, so organic waste always goes into a pile to nourish the garden and our future meals.

So, banana consumption today: We buy a bunch of bananas, and what Sylvia doesn't consume in one sitting (that girl does love her some bananas) sometimes start to get spotty. When the fruit gets too spotty for even Sylvie to eat, I peel the bananas, break them into three pieces, and throw the pieces in a bag in the freezer. The peels go into the compost bin.

The frozen parts could be used for banana bread, which we still don't really eat, but generally go into smoothies. Two of our favorites:

• Double-Milk Banana Smoothie: I got this from one of the What to Expect books, but we drink them all the time now. In a blender, whir up a cup of milk, the amount of powdered milk required to make a cup of milk (usually about half a cup), a frozen banana, a bit of vanilla, and a teaspoon or so of cinnamon.
• Sylvia and Tommy's Favorite Breakfast Smoothie: A cup of vanilla yogurt (Trader's Point Creamery is their fave), a bit of milk (maybe a quarter cup), a frozen banana, and a handful of frozen berries.

So now, when a banana comes into our house, it doesn't go out in the trash. The flesh eventually gets eaten, and the peel goes into the garden. Our banana routine isn't eliminating the need for oil, but it's a tiny change that, along with the hundreds of other tiny changes we're making, can start to move the needle.

A Big Midwestern Breakfast

Saturday morning I got up, relieved to have made it through a treacherous workweek, and decided to skip the raisin bran and putter around making the kind of breakfast that would have made our hearty, farming Indiana forebears proud.

First came the bacon, purchased from local Royer Farm. I'd been warned when I first bought four pounds of this thick-cut bacon that it cooks much quicker than the store-bought, shrink-wrapped variety. Which it does. Apparently the added preservatives, fillers, and unmentionables in pork from major chains slows down the cooking. This was on the table in time for M to eat his usual five pieces.

Next I tried a pecan coffee cake recipe from a great out-of-print book called Sourdough Baking. Because I couldn't see us eating a whole coffee cake before the it all went green, I baked these in three mini-loaf pans so that I could freeze one or two. I also played around with the recipe a bit, adding whole grains and using a natural sweetener. The recipe made a nutty, sweet, dense (but not overbearing) loaf that was incredibly moist. (Could the moistness be due to the stick and a half of butter? You be the judge...)

I made a mistake in reading the recipe and put allof the sweet pecan mixture inside the loafs, and it was pretty good that way. If you want, though, you can layer batter-pecans-batter-pecans.
Note to self: When using mini-loaf pans, the tiny pans have a tendency to tip over and spill batter and pecans all over the bottom of the oven. Check.

Pecan Sourdough Mini Loaves

2/3 cup sucanat (or brown sugar)
1 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 to 1 cup chopped pecans
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sucanat (or brown sugar, white sugar, or a mixture)
2 eggs
1 cup sourdough starter
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup white flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Mix together the 2/3 cup sucanat, pecans, and cinnamon. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and remaining cup sucanat. Add the eggs, then the sourdough starter, then the milk, and then the vanilla. Now add the baking soda, then the baking powder, then the salt, and finally the flour. (This step mixes everything up well without requiring you to dirty a third bowl to mix together the dry ingredients.) Mix this for about three minutes until

In three greased or nonstick mini-loaf pans, use about half the batter and distribute it between the three pans, spreading it out evenly. Now sprinkle the sucanat/pecan/cinnamon mixture over the batter in all three pans. Then top with the rest of the batter.

Bake for about 35 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.