Bananas and Beyond

When I arrived on Tuesday, one of the treats that Cecilia's mother Dora brought with our dinner was bananas. Bunches of ripe fruit the size of your middle finger, all golden and mottled brown, came from the home of Dora's sister and brother-in-law, C's Aunt/Tia Olga and Uncle/Tio Carlos. All week the three of us have been enjoying the bananas, right along with a polite floaty swarm of tiny fruit flies that magically appeared through the unscreened windows within an hour of the fruit.

By Saturday, we agreed that the uber-ripe bananas needed to be refrigerated and used in some way soon. Daniel's Diaper Shower was scheduled for Sunday afternoon and Cecilia shared her plans for a menu for the gathering. I offered to make Banana Bread--something unfamiliar to C. Cecilia called both her mother and her Tia Alice (ah LEE she) for the recipe called Cuca (KOO kah). This baked dessert fills a 'medium baking pan' and involves alternating several layers of sliced banana with flour/leavening that are covered with meringue and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. (We used every last banana!)

Cecilia asked me to make Cowboy Cookies for the party. She brought my old recipe to Brazil and made these oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for her family holiday party; and said that everyone was crazy about them. C said that drop cookies are very rare in Brazil, and considered a real speacial treat. Cowboy Cookies have been present at most every celebration in my life since High School 1967 when my friend Peggy Kuntz's mom made them for a Bellaire Belle drill team officers' party. So, of course, this important party for Daniel had to have Cowboy Cookies added to the menu.

Again, I have pictures of the Cuca prep, and hope to find the time to sit with our resident TechnoGeek Will for a lesson in transferring photos from a laptop to my uncooperative iPad. You know there's a chance that it's operator error with the picture thing, but even Will says that iPads don't behave sometimes. I choose to believe him.

And by the way, "Yes! We have no bananas."

Well, actually that's not even true. Dora brought more bunches to the Diaper Shower yesterday. But don't you think sliced frozen banana bread will make a great late-night snack for Daniel's nursing Mommy very soon?