Last Saturday found us aimlessly driving around Seattle, coffees in hand with Oliver napping in the backseat. As do so many babies (or so I hear), Oliver loves a good car nap, and so we're pretty happy letting him take a good, looooong car nap. Saturday being something of a family day, we often end up driving somewhere deliberately or ... just driving, and as we found last weekend, it turns out that when you're just driving with nowhere in particular to go, sometimes you end up eating bad donuts while the car's still running in the Krispy Kreme parking lot before heading across the street to spend an inordinate amount of time looking at antiques you can't afford. You may also come across a fruit stand that's having a rager of a banana sale (4 pounds, all organic, for $1!) that you really can't pass up (but that you can afford). When we got home from our Great Adventure later in the afternoon, we really weren’t sure what to do with our haul. We gave a bunch to Sam's sister Christa, Sam kept another for himself, and then I posted a picture on Instagram asking you all about your favorite banana recipes. Within minutes, the comments and emails started pouring in, leaving us with a new quandary: where to begin? When I find myself confronted with this question in the kitchen (and in life in general), the answer, more often than not, is ice cream. 

Last weekend we went camping out on Orcas Island, my favorite of all the San Juan Islands. The trip had been on our calendar for a few months, but it seemed to sneak up quickly (hasn't that been the case this summer?) leaving us scurrying like crazy to get out of the house Friday afternoon to catch our ferry. We've been to Orcas enough times to have a favorite swimming hole, hike, and bakery, but this trip would be different as we were going car camping with three other couples and a gaggle of kids. I knew that at 24 weeks pregnant it might not be superbly comfortable to sleep in our small tent, but we were bringing air mattresses and I packed my pillow so surely all would be well. The day before we left I baked a loaf of this banana bread and stocked up on healthy snacks and fizzy water. Sam dug through the basement to find all of our camping gear. We were ready.

I've been dreading writing my vows for months now -- much in the same way I dreaded writing term papers or tackling really big, looming projects. To cope with the fact that I wasn't yet actually writing anything down on paper, I bought different journals, thinking the problem was that I didn't have the right note-taking vehicle. I bought a little black Moleskine. Still wasn't feeling inspired. I picked up an Indian-print handmade paper journal at the student bookstore in the University District. It collected dust. I pulled out an old notebook covered in a print of Babar the Elephant doing yoga -- surely this would be the ticket. Sadly, not so much. I finally pinpointed what my problem was: I had no idea what writing vows even looks like. I knew it was important to both of us that we do so, but most of the weddings I've been to have been pretty standard and I hadn't seen many examples of couples writing their own. Enter Google. YouTube. Enter deciding to give up for weeks on end. And then one night, I poured myself a cocktail and decided to make a batch of cookies. Sam was out with a friend and as I sat waiting for the cookies to bake, I started to miss him and think about all of the reasons I love his company. The vows wrote themselves that night. No Babar journal, no YouTube inspiration -- just the smell of warm walnut-flecked cookies and thoughts of why I looked forward to seeing Sam walk though the door.

There are many reasons to make cake for breakfast. Especially if that cake is made from 100% whole-grains and uses ripe bananas, fragrant coconut and toasty walnuts with just a touch of natural sugar. The main reason, today, is that it's time for a new album. Have a seat. Let me explain. We had a small dinner party in our backyard last week to celebrate a friend's new business idea. She needed some photos for her website, so she offered to cook a summery spread if we'd host it and I'd snap a few shots. It was one of those 'let's plan it 6 weeks ahead to jive our Google calendar' affairs, but at the end of the night -- after too much wine and a rollicking game of Farkle -- we were so happy to have had the company, the music, the Indian-spiced roast chicken and rosé. But most of all, the company, in what has felt like a summer that's had too much work and not enough company.

This very week, each year, I'm faced with immense vacation guilt. If you've been reading the site for awhile, you know that Sam and I visit my mom's cabin in Upstate New York for July 4th each year. Grandparents, aunts and uncles come. A small handful of cousins along with a few novels, a bit of sunscreen, and some old tennis rackets. What doesn't come along are work emails or granola orders or vendor spreadsheets. And at first I always feel like the world might come crashing down if I leave these things for one week. And then I always return and pick up right where I left off ... with a decided lack of world-crashing-down. So I'm reminding myself of that this morning, one day before we take off, with just enough time for me to share these delicious fresh banana blondies with you.

Melty popsicles on the first weekend of September. Banana popsicles, to be exact, with a little bourbon and brown sugar. Thoughts of an Indian summer, a little jaunt here in one week, and choosing to linger -- over morning coffee, evening drinks, a good book. Choosing not to linger over the television, online to-do lists, or starting to think about the holidays.

My friend Autumn recently pointed out an article in The New York Times all about living alone. Not like me in my city apartment, but like folks who choose to be fiercely independent and move somewhere isolated where they can truly be away from it all. The author, Sarah Maslin Nir, profiles three individuals (all men, interestingly enough) and discusses their compulsion to live in isolation. One man describes a feeling of freedom when you’re by yourself: "you don’t have to answer to anybody.” There's also a feeling of self-sufficiency. Others choose a reclusive lifestyle as a political statement. A 27-year-old British man spent the last year living in a hut he built in  Sweden as a way of being environmentally responsible. Regardless of the justification (and I suppose there doesn't really need to be one) "Embracing the Life of Solitude" made me really think about what it means to deliberately choose to be by yourself.

I've been eating a lot of bananas lately. And not just for an afternoon snack, or with my cereal in the morning. No, I wake up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday mornings, try and gag down a banana, and go back to bed for an hour. This sounds odd to most, but for someone who overdosed on the starchy fruit as a little girl, it's particularly strange and unpleasant. When I turn out my bedside light on Friday night, I can't help but dread the looming alarm and banana that await me. So what's the deal? I'm training for the Nike Women's Marathon and our coach has given us strict instructions to get some food into our bodies well before our our training runs in the morning. I'm not an early breakfast person as it is, especially not before 7:00, so this has been a challenge for me. The one thing I can seem to get down is half a banana. Thus: lots of bananas hanging around the house. And with our unusually hot weather over the past week, that means lots of overripe bananas. So every cook or baker knows: time to make banana bread. I recently finished Molly Wizenberg's beautiful memoir, A Homemade Life. In it, Wizenburg chronicles her move to Seattle, meeting her future husband through her blog Orangette, and the death of her father. It's truly a food memoir for my generation--I can't so much relate to getting a divorce and up and moving to Italy. But I can relate to small apartment kitchens, what it feels like to move to a new city without knowing anyone, and stark uncertainty about what the future holds. In addition to prose that will make you want to read very slowly with hopes the book will never end, Molly includes numerous personal and family recipes she's come to cherish over the years. Her Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Ginger caught my eye.