Bread. Warm. Toasty. Delicious just right out of the oven. I’ve not mastered the art of making yeast breads but I’m pretty darn good at making banana bread. The trick is in the bananas. If you have bananas that are on the verge of going bad, stick them in the freezer. Defrost them before you make your bread. It seems gross because they slide out of their skin looking like, well, there’s no description for what they look like, but they are the perfect consistency for mixing into the batter. You don’t have to mash them or anything. Oh, and add some sour cream to the batter. That’s the other trick. Homemade banana bread is the BOMB.
Bread is also slang for money. I wonder if today’s “Homemade Bread” is truly about counterfeiting? I don’t think frozen bananas will help you there. Although if I were laundering money here at home I might actually throw in a few towels from time to time. Man, I hate doing laundry.
So. What are we up to here in Denver? We’re enjoying some time off from treatment! Ben doesn’t go back for his next round of antibodies until December. He needs to make up that bone marrow biopsy he missed last time due to his throwing up but we’ve still got a couple of weeks to go before heading back to the Big Apple. In the meantime, Ben is doing school (he’s on track with his class), taking swim lessons (he is ROCKING the pool), and just being a normal kid. He’s even gained a whole pound! That puts him up to 45 pounds! Keep going, Ben. Unfortunately, you’ve got a long way to go.
When Ben was a toddler he didn’t really like to eat then, either. Who knows if cancer was already wreaking havoc on his little system. He just would not eat. I would get notes from his daycare provider asking for tips on how to get him to eat. I was looking for tips, too. Every time we took him to the pediatrician, which was a lot, we would ask her what we should do. Nothing she suggested really ever worked. It was troubling.
One day, I took Ben to the grocery store with me. I plopped him into the cart and strapped him in. The very first thing I picked up was a package of buns. Ben pointed at the bag and made a noise that I could only decipher as him wanting what was in the bag. I gave him one. With a voraciousness I had never seen from The Bean, he crammed it into his mouth. Before he was finished with the first bit of bread, he was pointing for more. I gave it to him. He kept eating bread until he was halfway through the bag. It was really the first time I had seem him eat that much in one sitting. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat as much since then.
The chemo, of course, has played a big part in his not wanting to eat. From what I understand, the amount of chemotherapy that he’s been through has done quite a job of frying his taste buds. He never really got a chance to develop a taste for anything. We still have big issues with getting him to eat. Nothing really tastes good to him. He’ll go through phases where cheeseburgers taste good but then he’ll stop liking them altogether. Just when I think I know what he likes, he stops liking it. His taste buds keep me on my toes.
There’s only a couple of things that have remained on his list of things he will eat: Pringles in the green can and pizza-flavored gold fish. And the occasional binge on bread. He’s a carb kid. You’d think I’d be able to bulk him up from that, but he maintains his weight at that pesky mid-40’s range. At least he’s not losing weight right now.
So, I think I’ll make some yummy bread for The Bean today. Maybe I’ll try a yeast version? We’ve got all day to be stuck inside (it snowed last night and left a blanket of ice on the roads and we don’t need to venture out). We can break bread together once it’s done and toast the fact that he’s cancer-free.
Ain’t that the best news ever?
Stronger Than I Look 