An Adults Only post

At some time in your life, you’ll be faced with someone you hate or dislike intensely. Sometimes you even have to cook for them which only makes matters worse as the reason why you probably hate them may be because they whinge about the food that you make or complain that it’s not to their taste or feel the need to go all Project Runway on your home decor. Having this person in your house is about as much fun as a colonoscopy.

Of course with other company present, it’s sometimes necessary to fake a smile and grit your teeth. Sometimes you call your own time out on this person and retreat to the kitchen tempted to add a few dollops of Habanero chilli sauce to their meal. But may I present you with the ultimate way to get through the meal than with a bread that says it all: the Give Them The Finger Bread!

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Have I ever told you what wonderful people my readers are? I’m sure I have on many occasions. The best thing about having wonderful readers is when they tell me about very cool things to make. Case in point is reader Carol who left me this comment stating simply: “Oh go on … make us Panda Bread!” and linked me to a blog who had indeed made a gorgeous Panda bread based on a Japanese blogger’s brilliant idea. My heart skipped a beat with excitement when I saw it and I knew I had to make it. There was only one thing stopping me. It was the 20 boxes of things that I was in the middle of moving.

Luckily things such as fate intervened and I hadn’t yet packed some of the final boxes. The ones that were left outstanding were a packet of green tea and Valrhona cocoa powder that I bought from our Tokyo trip. So I stashed these two packets in my already bulging handbag along with a host of other necessities that I didn’t want lost in the boxes like drawings that my Mother in Law did for me, anti Swine Flu hand sanitiser, Crabtree & Evelyn Earl Grey Teabags, a camera battery charger along with my normal ramshackle mix of things.

When we had finally settled in, I unloaded the Kitchenaid onto the counter at my parent’s house which is where we are staying while renovating our kitchen and bathroom. My mother had never used one before and I warned her not to pick it up or move it as it was heavy. “You mean this stays here all the time?” she said somewhat curious and perhaps a little wary of this new benchtop intruder.

As for my styling, I admit I’m the least clucky person I know except for perhaps my friend Gina. However I couldn’t resist buying this Tiffany & Co. child’s cup and saucer for an imaginary child. My imaginary child wouldn’t break it, be well behaved, eat adventurously, be kind to strangers and nice to animals and love to eat Panda Bread. Although if this imaginary child were to materialise I could only guarantee the last point.

So tell me Dear Readers, what is your imaginary child like?

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With so many gorgeous Banana Breads to choose from my Banana bread Bake Off, I have no shortage of great recipes. One of them that caught my eye was Catherine from Clever Monkey Studio who made a Siamese Loaf aka a Curry Pineapple Banana Bread. It was fortuitous that I had a small amount of pineapple left, which was exactly the amount I needed to make this intriguing bread with the rest of the items already in my pantry with bananas being plentiful and inexpensive at the moment.

Another advantage to this is how gorgeously easy it is. Look at the method below and be delighted. There’s nothing more to it that some mixing. I don’t often push recipes on people but I do push this one only because I know that you might be weirded out by the addition of curry powder in a banana bread. But you will be duly rewarded with this unusual but gorgeous loaf.

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