There's no place like home

Vacation.  Aaaaaahhhhh, how I love thee!  There's so much to be said for a recharge, and for me a big part of that is not necessarily having to cook.

We just returned from Maui with a dear friend.  We are tanned, we have replaced our bloodstream with macadamia nuts, and we are also glad to back home around the familiar things:  The comfort foods, the feline entourage, the bathtub which doesn't require extensive Ashtanga yoga to submerse oneself.

Some of you may recall my post a while back about banana bread.  Well, dear readers, the banana bread in question in said post has been achieved and it is almost as lovely as the woman who makes and sells it.  We finally braved the scary-as-all-hell road, and pulled into the village of Kahakuloa where Julia's roadside stand beckons like a lime-green lighthouse in an ocean of vehicular peril.

Five minutes in Julia's company makes you forget that your nerves have been shot for the past half an hour.  The samples of banana bread, taro chips, coconut candy, and various dried fruit are a welcome jolt to ones wavering blood-sugar levels.  She is loveliness incarnate, and her calm, friendly demeanor makes you understand what REAL "aloha spirit" is all about.

Needless to say we bought banana bread, and yes, it is AMAZING!  I still hesitate to call it the best ever, because, let's face it, the fact that you put your life on the line to get does give it a wee bit of an advantage in the polls.

That being said: if you do go, and don't bring some back for me, you'll have an entirely new peril to contend with.

Give Me Banana Bread or Give Me Death

...although I'd prefer the bread.

In fact, I've chosen banana bread over death in the past.

Apparently the best banana bread to be had is available from Julia's Best Banana Bread on Maui in a tiny village off one of the most perilous and nerve-wracking stretches of road anywhere in the world.  We got surprisingly close to the village once, but the final stretch of road before getting there raised enough red flags to get us to turn back.  A narrow, one-lane road, with blind hair-pin turns along the edge of a cliff with a sheer drop-off on one side, and a soaring rock wall on the other.  The VW at the bottom of the cliff sitting as an explicit testament to the potential severity of the situation.  Since we were in a rental car we figured it may be most prudent to actually be able to return the vehicle.

Still Julia's beckons.  One day, little bread, one day...

In the meanwhile, in my quest to get as close to the best loaf possible without risking life or violation of an automobile rental contract, I stumbled across this blog.  The recipe seemed simple enough, boasts as being "the best banana bread ever" (Hear that?  EVER!!!), so I gave it a whirl.

I don't doubt the superiority of Julia's bread, but until I have tangible proof, I have to say this stuff is currently sitting in first place.

Still curious?  I direct you now to the Foodess for what I'm titling "Possibly the best banana bread ever but then again I've valued my life over adventure in the past and haven't tried Julia's yet".  You may amend the title as you see fit.

www.foodess.com/2010/09/the-best-banana-bread-ever/