Banana Blueberry Bread
with apologies to The Best-Ever Vegetarian Cookbook's banana pecan bread recipe

• 1 stick sweet butter, melted or softened
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 ripe bananas
• 2 cups self-rising flour
• about 4.5 or 5 ounces blueberries
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter and brown sugar until creamy. Beat the eggs and incorporate them gradually into the mixture of butter and sugar. Add the hint of vanilla extract. Mash the bananas -- chunky banana bits work best with this loaf, so leave them in -- and pour them into the mixture. Fold in the flour, preferably sifting it with a sieve first (or, if restricted by the constraints of a tiny, understocked kitchen and matching budget, with a bowl and a fork). Once you have a nice consistent mixture, sprinkle in the blueberries and stir them in slowly, taking care not to squash them. Now take a nice loaf pan, like the disposable 8" by 4" I selected, and grease it up with a fearless chunk of butter, which will completely prevent the bread from sticking to its container. (This last step comes in handy for photo-ops.) Tuck away your bread in the oven and let it bake for about an hour and 15 minutes. Stick a knife or skewer into the bread when its time is up: if the utensil comes out clean, the bread is ready to go. Let it cool for a few minutes. Serve with blueberries, a dollop of fresh or whipped cream, and a cup of coffee. Feel free to substitute cranberries, pecans, or any other fruits or nuts for the blueberries as the mood strikes.

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I've decided that food is probably the best framework around which to structure this blog. Cooking has always been a minor hobby for me, and since I've been doing quite a bit of it lately -- sandwiches get old, and going out to eat every day gets expensive, -- I thought I would document my culinary progress and subject people to it. You do get a recipe for your trouble, though, and the chance to comment on it or anything else in the process, which is a relatively fair trade, no?

Although I intend for this blog, in part, to be about food for food's sake, it also gives me the opportunity to rant about completely unrelated stuff, such as, but not limited to:

1. What I've been listening to recently
(The Cure,
Crosby, Stills and Nash,
TV On the Radio)

2. What I've been reading recently
(the New Yorker,
The Coast of Akron by Adrienne Miller,
Dwell magazine)

3. What I've been thinking about
(the devastated Gulf Coast,
a business plan)

4. What games I've been playing
(ROSE Online BETA,
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,
The Kingdom of Loathing )

5. and What games I'm anticipating
(Sims 2: Nightlife expansion,
Black and White 2,
The Movies,
Civilization IV)

6. What I've been doing
(bicycling,
redecorating,
sketching)

Oh, and every now and then, there is a pose with the results: