If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past four-plus decades of life, it’s that life is messy.
Everyone’s life is messy.
Real life isn’t Instagram-ready or Pinterest-pretty. It’s full of chaos—good and bad—and peppered with troubles. We all have them, even if you can’t see them in the posts you scroll through on your phone while waiting in line at school pick-up, at the grocery store, at the doctor’s office. Or maybe all that scrolling is what’s giving you the troubles.
Another thing I’ve learned? Banana bread often helps with those troubles.
Sure, it doesn’t fix every problem out there, but there’s something soothing about following a recipe’s instructions and making a warm treat to gobble up after it has filled your (messy) home with its swoony scent.
So do it.
Yes, even if your home, like mine, isn’t Pinterest-perfect.
Print out a banana bread recipe. (I used the one from here.)
Dig through your messy cabinets for the ingredients.
Grab some over-ripe bananas from your messy kitchen counters.
Rummage through the messy utensil drawers for measuring cups and spoons.
Wave away the clouds of flour that puff from the mixer, landing on your hands, clothes, floor, while using that messy printed-out recipe as a mat on which to rest all the stuff you use to measure, stir, cut.
Then toss all those dishes into your messy sink to deal with…eventually.
And wait.
Soon you’ll have a couple of loaves of happiness to slice up and eat, savoring each sweet bite that allows you to forget—just for a little while—all the things that are troubling you right now.
It won’t matter that the top got smooshed when you flipped it over to take it out of the pan, and a few bits of the bottom stuck to the pan because you ran out of that non-stick spray stuff about halfway through the second pan so had to rub some of the sprayed-on spray off the first pan with your fingers and then onto the second, which (apparently) isn’t quite as effective as remembering to buy more of the non-stick spray when you were running low like a week (or three) ago.
The banana bread is messy, too, but still delicious whether you eat it as-is or toasted with a little butter or maybe even dipped in egg, milk, cinnamon, and vanilla to brown up as french toast. Or all three in the same day. So eat it up, my friends.
Then maybe leave some for your family to eat, too?
Or not.
That’s up to you.
As for me, I chose my banana bread recipe from this link by Bake It Happen. (I skipped the chips and added some Sugar in the Raw sprinkled on top.)
Why from there?
Because all month long, each time someone bakes one of these recipes (seriously, their banana bread one is one of the best I’ve ever tried) and shares a picture of the tasty treat on social media, tagging #bakeithappen, they’ll donate money on your behalf to The Cancer Couch Foundation. I don’t know about you, but when my life feels particularly messy or troubled, doing something good for someone else always helps.
Yep, you read that right: you bake and eat, they’ll donate the cash. BOOM.
I know far too many people whose lives have been made exponentially messier by cancer, and I want to help in any way I can. Baking, sharing, and helping raise money is something, right?
Plus: I got to eat banana bread and forget my messes for a little while.
Don’t like to bake, but still want to help? You can donate directly to The Cancer Couch Foundation. 100% of your donation will go toward their mission to accelerate treatment, and someday find a cure, for metastatic breast cancer.
If the name sounds familiar, that’s because last year my daughter ran a lemonade stand to raise money for them after she heard me talking about the foundation with my husband. Here she is with her stuffed-to-the-top jar:
As someone who regularly wants to punch cancer in the face, I’d love to give a big thank you to Bake It Happen for helping raise money for a cure. Because we need one.
(And for the banana bread recipe, because FOR REAL it is one of the best I’ve ever tried and eaten and eaten again and eaten okay maybe just two more slices today.)
We actually have never tried to make a banana bread before. But this looks really good. Can’t wait to give it a try.
Yes! I totally agree that warm, baked goods make many things in life better. A warm shower, too. Maybe there’s something about warmth? Amazing that Bake it Happen was donating to such a great charity!
Love this! Never heard of that group before but definitely going to check it out and make some banana bread too!