Grandma's Banana Nut Bread

My grandmother made the best banana nut bread.  She would send it or bring it or have it any time we saw her.  It was moist, nutty, banana-filled and so delicious.  Everything she made was that good.

My brother-in-law is visiting.  He's a great cook and he always comes with a freshly baked loaf of bread when he arrives.  I don't know how he brings bread without smashing through the travel on planes, but he does.

This time he brought a banana nut loaf.  It has that same delicious, unctuous, creamy quality of my grandmother's loaf.  I keep having small slices.  The loaf keeps getting smaller. 

He told us the loaf has a full stick of butter in it.  I wish he hadn't told me that.  I know how many calories are in a stick of butter.  But I also now know why the bread is so delicious.  The only difference, that I can tell, is that his loaf doesn't have a sugar coating on the top.

This coating always tasted like sugar and brown sugar and butter and maybe some cinnamon.  It was probably held together with some flour and then smeared on top of the loaf so you'd get a few bites that were better than the best, more tasty than delicious, and even better than you remembered from the last time you had the loaf when you ate them.

Today, when the babies were sleeping, I tried to remake that topping to recapture my childhood memories of Grandma's banana nut bread.  It wasn't exact, but it was close enough.

I've told Uncle Bob he's not allowed to bring that loaf of bread on future visits.  I told him he's required to bring that loaf of bread on future visits. 

The Big Boy Update:  Glow sticks.  He's never played with them before.  Daddy opened a pack of bracelets and showed him, in the dark, how they connected with the connectors by making three into a necklace.  Not long enough, my son decided.  He studied and studied the sticks and connectors until he knew how they worked together and eventually got the whole pack into a long necklace.  And he did it all in the dark.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Standing standing.  She stood in place, while holding my cell phone and waving it around for close to a minute today without any additional support.  She stands up well, as long as she doesn't realize she's doing it.

Someone Once Said:  A man who bets on greed and dishonesty won’t be wrong too often.