Banana Bread and Spicy Tea Bread

Jamaica and Ethiopia inspire this post. I'm deliberately leaving out the recipes because I want to encourage the purchase of the cookbook from which they came. So, basically, these posts will consist of nothing more than elated commentary and hopefully a few pictures. I'm typically a more outwardly subdued, observer type personality, but there are three things which excite me to the point of outright verbal exclamation: the sky when it is doing something particularly spectacular, babies, and good food.

Four overripe bananas inspired the Jamaican Banana bread baking I did today. I unabashedly threw in that whole stick of butter and happily chopped up some trail mix for the fruit and nuts addition. The finished loaf coming out of the oven rose so beautifully and the aroma was so stunning as if it were exclaiming "I'm mouthwateringly yummy! Devour me!"

The second bread I actually made awhile back, but I don't know if I'll try it again. It definitely deserves a commentary all its own, and this photo is actually pretty accurate. Picture a two inch thick disc as large as an over-sized frisbee and with a strange white-pepper and coriander tang which made every bite seem unexpected. It was fun to bake and interesting to figure out how to cut. Tearing might have worked better, though it was pretty crumb-y. Then there was storage. Which is the only reason I probably won't make this bread again. Humidity and fruit flies and not enough mouths to eat it eventually did it in. But the spiciness adds an interesting twist, especially if contrasted with a sweeter as apposed to plainer tea.