Revenge is a Dish Best Served Baked

Please do not be alarmed by the recipe below. I assure you that I have not fallen prey to any latent Martha, homemaker-y tendencies; rather, this rare display of domesticity is motivated wholly by spiteful revenge, a language I speak far more fluently.

Once upon a time - i.e., last Tuesday morning - I ambled into my local Starbucks for my usual decaf latte and breakfast craving du week - some banana chocolate chip dessert-masquerading-as-breakfast thingy. Upon placing my order, I encountered not the usual chirpy compliance, but the following (via my Twitter feed):

Fear not, fearless readers - despite the early morning hour, I summoned my best patented Icy Glare and mocked Miss Snooty Fat Counter McJudgypants to the best of my decaffeinated ability.* Duly shamed, the barista then backpeddled faster than John Edwards faced with a paternity suit, and I triumphantly departed said coffee shop with both a free drink and dignity (if not my waistline) intact.

*Sure, I could have given her the benefit of the doubt & listened to the ensuing excuses, but that's boring. Thank you for understanding.

And so it was that I grew determined not to further line the pockets of the Starbucks of Judgment, but learn to bake my craving du jour myself. I bring you, as purloined straight from the e-pages of Epicurious here, what I like to call "Pretty's Full-Fat, To Hell with Them, Guaranteed To Piss Off Judgmental Bitches Banana Chocolate Chip Bread of Revenge":

Ingredients

- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

- 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (Pretty Note: I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd consider reducing this to 1/2 cup; I did a heaping 3/4 cup, and it slightly overwhelmed the banana taste)

- 3/4 cup walnuts, toasted, chopped (PN: I skipped this & will not next time; need to walnuts to cut the sweetness of the chocolate)

- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

- 1 cup sugar

- 2 large eggs

- 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (PN: I did 4 medium bananas, approx. 1 1/4 cups, for moistness & recommend this amount)

- 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preparation

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter & flour 9 x 5 x 2 1/2 in. metal loaf pan. Whisk first four ingredients in medium bowl to blend. Combine chocolate chips and walnuts in small bowl; add 1 tbsp flour mixture and toss to coat.

- Beat butter in large bowl / mixer until fluffy. Gradually add sugar, beating until well blended. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in mashed bananas, lemon juice, and vanilla extract. Beat in flour mixture. Spoon 1/3 of batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle with half of chips/nut mixture. Spoon 1/3 of batter over mixture. Sprinkle with remaining chips/ nut mixture. Cover with remaining batter. Run knife through batter in zigzag pattern.

- Bake bread until tester inserted into center comes out clean & top appears golden brown, about 1 hour (Pretty Note: Due to my wonky oven, I did it at 375 for approx. 45 minutes, which worked well). Let cool a bit, then turn onto rack & cool further.

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Not the Prettiest bread you've ever seen, but wait until you try it . . .

Verdict: Guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of sanctimonious baristas everywhere - this is cellulite on a plate, and worth every bite. Again, I'd slightly reduce the chocolate chips & be sure to add the walnuts; as is, it's a bit too rich to be called a breakfast dish, even for this confirmed sweets hound, but would be a delicious dessert.

Any other judgmental trollops we can defeat via the power of baking? Beware the cranky pregnant lady armed with a Kitchenaid . . .

Secret Single Behavior, Thursday Night Edition

One of the things that They - you know, that mysterious "They" committee that comes up with the rules - don't tell you about marriage is how some of the really good bits are times spent apart.  Yes, apart.

Admittedly, for those of you with significant others working or stationed far away, I'm sure you've had quite enough of alone time and would cheerfully kick me for saying this, and understandably so. It is the couples who aren't separated by circumstance, but who choose to spend nearly every waking second together, that work together or took every class together - those are the ones that leave me entirely befuddled.  After all, how else can you truly appreciate one another if you don't have the occasional Secret Single Behavior ("SSB") evening alone?  Doesn't the time apart, secure that you will see your SO very soon, make the time apart delectable?  Am I right here?

When I do get the odd night to myself, I wish that I could tell you that I'm busy baking casseroles in the shape of a wee Birkin, all while balancing my checkbook & running the Junior League single-handedly & catching up on some light quantum physics* reading. In actual fact, if I'm not otherwise out with friends, my SSB checklist - how handy would this be for our young professionals' Martha-lite-omnimedia project, by the way? - goes something like this:

Facial Exfoliation / Pluckage - Check

Wine? - Check  

George Forman-ed Meal du Jour? - Check

Magazine / Catalogue Reading? - Check

Ice Cream? - Check

Sauvignon blanc, Dreyer's rocky road, and unsupervised internet access. Please try to contain your overwhelming envy.

What does your typical SSB night include?

For the Rest of Us . . .

Brave blogfriend Kate over at Elefantitas Alegres did a fun post the other day revealing the contents of her fridge, a classic show of one of the small but many inglorious bits of being a professional female type.  And as I sat last night punching furiously at my DVR remote, incredibly vexed that it has thwarted me once again by not taping the ONE SHOW which I NEEDED TO WATCH in the ONLY HALF-HOUR IN WHICH I CAN SQUEEZE TV TIME, I got to thinking along related lines . . .

. . . where is the multimedia empire for us youngish, maybe working, maybe parenting, maybe not, maybe all of the above types? Can you name someone, or one magazine, or a site that talks about what we're actually doing?  I'm feeling under-represented here.  

Don't get me wrong - I adore Aspirational Housewifery Reading (here's to you, Queen Martha) as much as the next lawyer lady - but I read it much like one reads a travel guide to an exotic land you strongly suspect you'll never visit.  My efforts to sway the AH into allowing me to lead the life of Trophy Wifery I so richly deserve have gone, er, not well.  I am therefore no more likely to cook a one four course meal on your average Wednesday night as I am to leave Pretty HQ clad in nothing but a Snuggie.* I fervently desire to be that lady, but alas, I am stricken with a condition that requires me to have 8 hours of sleep each night.**

*Although this would seriously help both my South Austin & internet cred, so I'm thinking about it.  After all, there's a pub crawl at stake here.

**The condition being that I am Hell on heels without 8 hours of sleep each night.  

(Credit:  Martha Stewart Omnimedia)

I'm not one to let a lack of talent interfere my ambition / megalomania, however, so let's get to work on what our youngish, professionalish, no-way-in-heck-am-I-doing-the-laundry-this-week-honey network might resemble:

- Magazine:  how to make dinner in 10 minutes with nothing but a rind of moldly Parmesan, Wheat Thins, and 1/2 glass of leftover chardonnay ;  how to convince your significant other that cooking/ cleaning / etc. takes time away from him or her, hence it is to be avoided;  how to find a dry cleaner or post office open past 5 pm e.g. NeverNever Land.

- TV Show:  featuring ME, of course, interviewing such inspirational luminaries as David Beckham, Tony Bourdain, and . . . er, hmm . . . some bright young professional people types. 

And so on and so forth.  We can do this, right?  WHY isn't anyone doing this yet?  Oh, right, it's because we've got day jobs . . . hmm . . . anyone care to join me in my after-hours attempt to build a media empire?