how to bake banana bread

a 10-step recipe for self-destruction

Did you miss me? My weekly posting streak was tragically broken because *cough cough* I’m sick. There I was, just minding my own business, living my one wild and precious life, when—bam—the mother of all colds. After 48 hours of fully leaning into my fate (movie marathons, 17 cups of tea, practically becoming a tin of cream of tomato soup), I decided to trick myself into wellness. Maybe if I act like I’m not sick, I won’t feel as sick.

So I chose a wholesome, healing activity: baking banana bread. Because that’s a nice thing to do for yourself on a Saturday afternoon, right? Right???

How to bake banana bread

1. Notice that you have two bananas that have transitioned from the passable point of ripe yellow (I prefer my bananas to still have a hint of green) to speckled brown. Think to yourself, “It would be wasteful to throw these away. Ooh I know, I’ll bake banana bread!” Feel very pleased with your frugality and resourcefulness.

2. Remember that you didn’t win custody of the loaf tin in the break-up, so you have nothing to bake it in. Abandon plan. Still, refuse to throw the bananas away.

3. [two days later] Decide that you will bake banana bread and to invest in a Loaf Tin Of One’s Own. Take a mental stock of your ingredients but—this is crucial—do not write anything down or check a recipe. Take the long route to the supermarket armed with tissues, lozenges, and a scarf wrapped over your mouth to muffle any coughs or sneezes. Feel weirdly nostalgic for the daily lockdown walks of 2020. Arrive at the supermarket and purchase said loaf tin, butter, and walnut pieces (because you fancy). Return home victorious.

4. Finally look up a recipe. Discover it requires self-raising flour. You have only plain flour. Stare at the screen like it personally betrayed you. Abandon plan again.

5. Pass away a couple of hours in a cotton-wool-headed funk, having not enough energy to go outside again but too much energy to sit on the sofa and watch another Mission: Impossible film (which you couldn’t even if you wanted to because you’ve already watched all the ones that are available on the streaming services you have access to).

6. Summon the willpower to go back out, convincing yourself it will be good for you after two days of not leaving the house. Begrudgingly acquire self-raising flour, cursing your frugality and resourcefulness that has turned out to be neither frugal nor resourceful. Return home, now a shadow of your former self, but determined to see the plan through.

7. Begin baking. Attempt to cream butter and sugar by hand, blissfully unaware of how laborious this is because you’ve been spoilt with electric mixers in your previous abodes. Be humbled by the fact that your arms are as weak as your immune system. Wonder how anyone did this before electricity while your biceps tremble with the effort of folding.

   

8. Grease the loaf tin with an obscene amount of butter because you also do not own baking paper. Tell yourself this will work. Place the batter in the preheated oven at 180 degrees for 50 minutes. Stare at the mountain of dirty bowls and utensils. Recall Marie Kondo’s words in your head: “Cleaning is confrontation with nature; tidying is confrontation with yourself.” Decide that Marie Kondo brings you no joy, and mentally discard her into the burning heap.

9. Eventually, you confront yourself. In the absence of a dishwasher, submerge your hands into the soapy sink only to realise that the nails you painted earlier in the day to bring yourself a little bit of joy have now been completely ruined.

10. Remove the banana bread from the oven. Stick a knife in to check if it’s done. It is, but alas, not as done as you are. Leave it on the counter, untouched. Realise that after a long and winding road, you have absolutely no appetite for it.

11. Accept this as a metaphor for something larger. Swear off bananas, bread, and baking. Return to the sofa and fantasise about the uneaten loaf fossilising on the kitchen counter, where it will someday be discovered by future archaeologists studying the eating habits of single people with ambitious plans and respiratory infections.