Mom's Banana Bread

½ c margarine (melted in microwave)

2 c sugar

2 eggs

4 bananas, mashed

Cream and make sour milk (1 c milk and 1 Tbs. vinegar.).

Add:

2 tsp. vanilla

1 c sour milk

Mix and add:

1 c flour

Mix again then add:

2 tsp. baking soda

2 c flour

Pour into 2 greased bread pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes.

I'm entering a contest.

Wanted: Your favorite recipe, along with the story of how it came to be your favorite.

My entry:

Love is simply the right combination of smashed bananas, sugar and sour milk. Doesn't sound like love? Well, that's what goes into my mom's banana bread and a warm hug is what comes out.

I can still smell the warm draft of my childhood as I'd walk through the door after a long day of school, greeted by the golden fragrance of love. Banana bread, like milk, eggs or flour, was a staple in our home. It was the solution to fill the hungry tummies of whining children before dinner, a snack to share with a friend, or sustenance to satisfy a scavenging teenager.

The recipe had its own humble origins. My grandma was the first to find the recipe in a neighborhood cookbook, which she showed me after many years of use. Little did the author know how many lives that recipe would reach and even bless.

In my elementary days, my mom kept her five children busy during long summers by enrolling us in a local 4-H club. The culminating event of the summer was entering the country fair. After passing off snicker doodles, I graduated to the banana bread category. Upon reviewing the awards, I was stunned to see my show stopping recipe had not won a huge, purple sweepstakes ribbon, but given a small, red third place ribbon instead. “Crust too gooey,” was scrawled upon it. I wondered what kind of banana bread they had been eating; banana bread needed to be moist to be good!

I started making banana bread again after having my own children. My first attempts were worse than my county fair entry, with huge gooey valleys in the middle of my loaves. As my children grew, I grew with them- a mother who knew how to kiss scrapes and battle pirates, and the key ingredients of love fell together. After some thought and perhaps some new-found wisdom, I realized I had to add flour first to keep the vinegar from neutralizing the soda. Beyond the basics, however, I'd learned how to recreate what my mother and her mother had mastered.

Now that I'm a mother, I've found it has become a staple in our kitchen. Any time I have a “hot oven” it's a call for a batch of banana bread, for which I can always find a use. I know it will heal hurt feelings, comfort a friend who is mourning, and bring a crowd of people around my kitchen counter to enjoy good food and conversation together.

I'm a much better baker now, as evidenced by my neighbors giving me their old bananas in hopes I'll make bread for them. I can't take the credit, but I can draw one conclusion that everyone needs a little extra love in their life, a warm hug, fresh out of a “hot oven.”