About that banana bread...

Thursday, 11:58 pm

By Kate

Nov

27

2008

That banana bread that I made this afternoon turned out surprisingly well considering. It was somewhat dense and a bit drier than normal. I attributed that to the much smaller loaves. No one seemed to notice and it disappeared in a hurry. I suppose if you slather enough butter on something, it covers a multitude of sins.

I got to thinking about it tonight and suddenly realized why the bread turned out drier than usual.

I forgot to add the 1 1/4 cups of milk. Dunno how I managed to forget that, but it definitely accounts for drier than usual banana bread. At least it wasn’t an embarrassing mistake. As long as I don’t tell anyone who ate it.

One down....

Thursday, 9:14 pm

By Kate

Nov

27

2008

Earlier this week, we had a fierce storm. I didn’t recall hearing that it was a coastal storm exactly, but apparently the waves were massive and the beach erosion was significant. Over the last couple of years, I’ve been watching the beach disappear in huge gouges and chunks after each storm and I know that I’ve speculated here on the blog that it wouldn’t be long before a house would topple over into the ocean. Well, yesterday was the day. The house had a little help, but it’s gone now.

The storm washed the dune out from under the house and the city immediately condemned the house. The woman who owned it was given approximately 10 minutes to remove what personal effects she could carry. Then the house was toppled with heavy machinery. The video below shows the details. There is considerable controversy over the way it was handled, but no one has come up with an idea on how it could have been done better. There really was no way to salvage the house or shore it up. There is simply nothing left on which to build or do any shoring.

I’m quite sure that the woman’s neighbors are terrified. Their houses are sitting on the raw edge of nothing now and one more storm will probably take at least one of them out. This is not a happy Thanksgiving for the homeowner or anyone else out there. Nature is not merciful.

For comparison, this is a photo of the same house that I shot in May of 2002. The photo was cropped a bit—the dunes extended out quite a bit further than the photo indicates. That’s an amazing amount of beach erosion in just 6 years. The storms are becoming much more violent each year. There is absolutely no question about that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday, 2:39 pm

By Kate

Nov

27

2008

The apple pie is cooling on the counter (and smells delicious) and the banana bread is in the oven. The carrots are just beginning to steam—they will end up buttered and dilled. Then, long about 3:00, I’ll be heading out to Thanksgiving dinner. I’m hoping not to embarrass myself too badly with the banana bread. It’s rather experimental. Somewhere along the line, over the last year, I loaned out my bread loaf pan and it never came home. So, my options for banana bread were a regular 8x8x2 inch dish or a new and untried pan with 8 individual sized loaves. I opted for the 8 individual loaves. Dunno how they’ll turn out. It’s kind of risky to try something brand new for Thanksgiving dinner. But whatever. It’s real banana bread with real bananas and it already smells utterly ambrosial.

From what I hear, the turkey is rounding the last half hour lap, the gravy is almost done, and the potatoes are about to go on the fire. We did all the prep work last night, so it was a pretty easy meal to put together today. Sounds as if I have enough time to get cleaned up and presentable. I’m a messy cook. Just glanced at myself in the mirror and I’m wearing a lot of flour....

Interesting observation: The grocery store was cashing in on last minute Thanksgiving shopping yesterday. They charged $6 for a five pound bag of potatoes. That’s double the normal price. People were not pleased. Gotta wonder what possessed them to do that.

Anyway. Happy Thanksgiving to those of you celebrating. There are a lot of things in the news these days that make one nervous about the future and there are certainly those who truly don’t know where the next meal will come from. It makes having a full table shared with friends an especially sweet moment. That’s a lot to be thankful for.

And, of course...we have a new President!! Just had to slip that in somewhere.