chubby banana muffins

I love eating bananas during class -- but I do not love eating mushy bananas during class. They're a mess, and everyone looks at me strangely. As I think I'm the only one who ever eats bananas in the house, having more mushy bananas than we can handle is not an unusual occurrence. My mother usually puts them to use in her (famous!) banana bread (it's crackly and buttery and banana-y and wonderful), but this time, she suggested that I try making these muffins -- because, well, they're hard to mess up. And yet: they're really good.

(Ignore, if you will, the completely out-of-season liners. We bought them a few Christmases ago. Yes, I'm aware it's Halloween.)

chubby banana muffins
adapted from banana muffins ii
makes 36 mini muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 large bananas, super brown
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Heat oven to 350 degrees & line a muffin tin with (cute) paper liners.

In a smaller bowl, lift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In a larger bowl, mash the three bananas (if they're not easily mashable, they're not brown enough, and your muffins may not turn out as sweet as they'd normally be). Whisk them together with the sugar, egg, and melted butter.

Fold in the flour, adding a little at a time; then, fold in the chocolate chips. As you can see in the photo, I didn't have enough for every muffin; I think we only had one-fifth of a bag left in the cupboard. However, I think even a little chocolate takes these to the next level. (& more chocolate never hurt anyone.)

Spoon batter into muffin pan (fill each dimple 3/4 -- or more) and bake for 15-20 minutes. These harden up a lot while cooling (as anything; so my mother tells me), so take them out sooner rather than later.

The original recipe listed this recipe as 48 mini muffins' worth; I found it to be more like 36. Perhaps I'm just really generous with the batter (I like my muffins to have muffin tops, more often than not) or perhaps not all mini muffin pans are made equal. Regardless, I'd say a serving counts as two muffins. They're tasty little buggers.

consumption report // september 2014

my reading rate & level @ this time of year are usually real lame. surprisingly, that hasn't been the case so far (thank goodness for senioritis kicking in so early.)

notables

[08.23] the god of small things by arundhati roy
would've definitely enjoyed this book more had I not had a constant refrain of "Velutha = Jesus" in my head the entire time. (thanks, literature professor whose book I did not deign to read. am I a pretentious prick? sometimes, yes.) regardless, the prose is gorgeous -- occasionally too gorgeous. I kept waiting for a slip-up in phrasing (just one would've done it for me!) but hélas, there were none to be found. it's one of the better (best) books I've been assigned for school; if only we read more WOC narratives. this appears to be the token one, unless you count THE JOY LUCK CLUB -- which, for whatever reason, people don't.

[08.29] the return by håkan nesser
this book is the reason i know the accent codes for ã, ä, and å. (alt + 0227, 0228, 0229 respectively. you're welcome?) anyway, perhaps I shouldn't have jumped straight into the world of Inspector Van Veeteren with the sole entry in the series that relegates said inspector to a hospital for 200 pages. but having personally removed this book from circulation -- stamping "DISCARDED" inside the front cover, taking a Sharpie to all three barcodes -- I felt a certain responsibility to take it home and love it. I didn't love it at first: it burns much more slowly than anything else I've read, and I left it alone for a really long time. (rare!) ...but towards the end, I realized just how weird and atmospheric and new and different the story was. there is no sense of place. this novel does not need to create a sense of place. the mystery is (as it so often is not) enough.

[09.06] run lola run (1997)
have def waxed -- not poetic (comme Amory Blaine: I'll never be more than a mediocre poet), but some other adjective -- about this film before. I watched it again a few nights ago. it's not only good at one in the morning. it's also good at one in the afternoon. it tries, but it doesn't try too hard. it's GROUNDHOG DAY for those of us with severely limited attention spans. it definitely values style over substance, but, I mean, just ask anyone who's graded my physics labs how I feel about that. also, Lola's hair. also: WAS WILLST DU VON MIR?

[09.21] the secret history by donna tartt
had you asked me how I felt about this novel just after I finished it, I'd have said "four/five" -- you know, if I actually spoke in ratings or whatever; I liked it, but you know, nothing special, and everything went to shit at the end. then, I found myself in the library last Thursday (must digress to mention the children's storytime I've been helping with -- it's the cutest & most rewarding thing in the world) -- anyway, I was browsing a bit, and I realized what I really, really wanted -- more than anything -- was THE SECRET HISTORY. something similar to if not exactly like it. so I rifled through several shelves' worth of books, and I searched the databases (books containing: murder + decadence + intellectualism + college/university students -- such a sucker for the combo) and I asked the librarians, and I was forced to come to the conclusion that there simply isn't anything quite like THE SECRET HISTORY. five/five, or something.

[09.29] mind's eye by håkan nesser
at last: the book I should've read a month ago, Van Veeteren's debut: this is a million times better than THE RETURN, and I really liked THE RETURN, so. again, I'm the worst ever at solving mysteries, so perhaps none of these "NORDIC NOIR" books are as good as I say they are...but MIND'S EYE did keep me reading everywhere -- on the bus, in the hallway, at lunch, while walking home (such that I nearly ran into this old man walking three dogs at once, also reading) -- so there's something to be said for that. (V.V. is a kindred spirit, here.)

it must be (true love)

BORUSSIA DORTMUND: Echte Liebe, true love. can I truly love a team a) that's located nowhere near me (not even close) & b) that I didn't know existed until two years ago?

ANSWER: probably not, at least not yet -- but first, define true love. is it the feeling I got when I first saw the colors: black & yellow, Wiz Khalifa but also the immense satisfaction of a Pilot pen gliding across a legal pad, a vague reminder of both half-finished Nanowrimo projects & pages of physics problems?

maybe it's just that weird human need to be part of something, even if that something's a soccer team a million miles away in a medium-sized city in Germany, where they call soccer Fußball. a soccer team that's only fielding half its roster because the other half is injured, a soccer team that keeps losing to teams it's supposed to beat... a soccer team that's oft confused with the other BVB, the Black Veil Brides.

(no one else can break my heart like you, Dortmund.)

there's a line in headhunters about Diana: she supports QPR because they're awful & they "need" her in order to avoid relegation. I do not think this is a viable reason to support a team, but there's no denying that the feeling of being needed is why people don't suddenly stop supporting teams when they start losing (and the team that was last season a force to be reckoned with is suddenly sitting ninth in the standings.)

(I mean, I ought to support the Houston Dynamo. my favorite color, ninety minutes away from my hometown, MLS solidarity. what's not to love? I'll watch a match before I leave for college; don't let me forget it.)

nach dem spiel ist vor dem spiel

there are days when: it is six a.m. and you are throwing up after a run. it is nine a.m. and you are throwing carrots across your government classroom. it is twelve p.m. and you are hungry because the cafeteria is out of bananas. it is two p.m. and you are sneezing so much that you are asked to stop. it is three p.m. and you are feeling your hip-bones tear apart the entire world. it is four p.m. and you are avoiding responsibility. it is six p.m. and you are avoiding Tylenol.

& suddenly it is another day at one a.m. and you are watching a violently redheaded Franka Potente race around what is presumably Berlin to the greatest techno you have ever heard in the only film you have ever seen that knows exactly how long it needs to be and not even your one-oh-two fever can kill your vibe. RUN LOLA RUN.

today, I came home to find that my mother had baked blueberry muffins in my absence. and not just any blueberry muffins: smitten kitchen's perfect blueberry muffins.

these are, indeed, perfect --

(buttery, blueberry-y, not too sugary; in short, not cupcakes who forgot to put their icing on)

-- a fitting end to a day that involved my fourth lunchtime burrito bowl in a row, a Jo Nesbø novel worth re-reading, and the inauguration of my personal senior-year-birthday-present policy (which is, essentially: everyone gets a book! i've thought long and hard about this. first up is Arthur C. Clarke's RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA.)

consumption report // mid-august 2014

volunteering almost daily at the local library's done wonders for my reading habits. my shift entails about an hour of actual work (shelving, cleaning, discarding books, the like) followed by two hours of nearly constant reading, interrupted only by the occasional child who needs help finding a stray CLIFFORD book. those go like hotcakes. (what's a hotcake? haven't read LITTLE HOUSE in too long.) I've never seen more than one in the bin at a time, and the library has dozens.

notables

[08.07] nuremberg: infamy on trial by joseph e. persico
found this gem while straightening every row of books in the entire library; that was a great leg workout if nothing else, seeing as I had to do a full squat every time I reached down to the lower shelves. I happened upon several books that I wouldn't have otherwise (a full shelf's worth of Dating Advice for the Modern Woman, anyone?) so I can't say exactly why this book is the only one I chose to check out: my morbid fascination with the horrors of war and especially those perpetrated by Nazism, perhaps. anyway, I assume it's far from the most objective account of the Nuremberg trials, but it makes for p thrilling narrative nonfiction. you might find yourself feeling sympathetic towards the worst kinds of war criminals; it's not your fault.

[08.08] the pillars of the earth (2010)
super regret to say that i never found the time to watch more than one episode of this. TAKE: Friday night: home alone, ostensibly working on college apps. instead: watching pillars, of which I remember only five minutes' worth of two childbirths intercut followed by two deaths intercut. I liked the book. I think I'll come to like this adaptation if I eventually watch more of it, but the first episode wasn't worth [not inviting people over & throwing a very secret party].

[08.11] headhunters by jo nesbø
FULL DISCLAIMER: I read this only because the Film of the Book* holds a special place in my heart. HEADHUNTERS is not notable because it's particularly well-written. I am not so against the first-person narrative as many seem to be, but the main reason I enjoyed this is because I suck at mysteries. if you are of clean and innocent mind, like myself, you will want to skip the scene in which the main character finds himself literally drowning in shit. you will also think the reveal is the cleverest thing you've read all month.

[08.14] skippy dies by paul murray
this book is so very long, and you'll to get to page 300 or so and not remember why you started it or even what was going on in the first few pages. but you will love it for what's happening. it's difficult to explain; I appreciate it immensely on a couple of different levels. ONE: it's a mad cocktail of everything I love to read about: WWI, cosmology, boarding school, teenagers, music, folklore. you name it, SKIPPY DIES has it. TWO: it's tragic. and hilarious.

*FULL DISCLAIMER #2: I only watched the film of the book because Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays the villain. I am easily swayed to new genres by the likes of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.