Banana Bread - Or How I Hope I Didn't Poison Myself

Dear City Gay,

I was inspired by your determination to make zucchini bread, so I thought I would try my hand at the bread business. I didn't have any zukes on hand, nor did I even have a bread loaf pan, but that didn't matter. I wanted to be just like you, except without the zucchini.

Quite awhile ago, I had bananas that started going bad, so I decided to freeze them with the intent of making banana bread. I honestly don't know when exactly I put them in the freezer, but I decided to put them in the fridge to thaw yesterday. I admit the bananas looks really gross when I took them out of the fridge this evening.

I decided to use a simple, Paula Deen recipe. Even though wary of the bananas I was using, I forged ahead. (Seriously, when I peeled the bananas, it looked a bit more like fly larvae or some sort of pupa.) There really isn't much to the recipe, which I can't find online but really is a basic banana bread recipe, I promise.*

My recipe book told me to bake the bread for 50 minutes, and I trusted my oven to not burn the bread. I was a fool. I know that things bake faster in my oven, but I apparently forgot that. The bread wasn't exactly burned, but it was darker than I would have liked. I tried to take a picture, but it looked less than appetizing. I decided I should put a slice with bread in front of Brad. I think he has a look of disgust on his face.


The bread tastes fine, but I am afraid the bananas were too old. This is probably all in my head, but if I throw up in awhile, I'm totally throwing the bread out. I can't say I'm truly pleased with the final product, but it was a nice foray into the bread baking business.

Yours,
Country Gay

*For the readers, here is the recipe taken from Paula Deen's The Lady and Sons Too!
1/2 cup (one stick) butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon basking powder
3 ripe bananas

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. In a mixing bowl, combine the butter and sugar; mix well. (You don't need a hand mixer; just use your muscles and a spoon.) Add the salt, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and bananas, and mix well. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes.

By the way, be careful with your eggs. I decided to waste one and throw it on the floor. Egg shell can fly quite far.

Pasta with a woman who smells naturally of roses

Dear City Gay,

Here is my first recipe/meal from the country. When I have a hankering for pasta, or when I'm at an Italian restaurant, I often go for the fettuccine alfredo. I know it is less than healthy, but I can't help loving the richness and creaminess of a good alfredo.

I've stolen my recipe from a Barnes and Noble cookbook that contains recipes that only require four ingredients. In my fast-paced country gay life, I don't have time for a lot of ingredients in recipes, but I also want to be able to do more than open up a jar of alfredo sauce when I make pasta. With the few ingredients in the recipe (heavy cream, butter, parmesan cheese, and pasta), I can make a fast dinner without needing to rely on fast food.


The sauce is quite easy. One only needs to melt 1/4 cup of butter then add one cup of heavy cream. When the cream and butter comes to a boil, reduce and simmer for five minutes stirring constantly. This is where I learned how tricky it can be to stir boiling milk and take pictures at the same time. (You are lucky, City Gay, to have Gus be your hand model in pictures!)


After simmering for five minutes, stir in 2/3 cup of parmesan cheese, add salt and pepper to taste, and turn off the heat. In the meantime, of course, you by now have boiling water and can add your pasta. I used non-dried fettuccine to make the cooking go faster, but you do whatever you want. I did have a problem here. I started boiling water too soon, and by the time I got to it, the water had boiled down. However, I pulled through, and the pasta was done in only five minutes.

One could stop there, drain the pasta, and mix in the sauce and serve. I decided to add a bit of shrimp to shake it up a bit. Again to save time, I bought pre-cooked shrimp, and tossed it with a bit of lemon juice and wine while warming it up before adding it to the alfredo sauce. To plate the dish, simply toss the pasta and sauce together and then serve with grated parmesan cheese.


Part of the reason for cooking alfredo tonight was to try a bottle of wine I bought while wandering through Oregon wine country last week. I stopped at the Montazi vineyard where I tried several wines, but the one that I bought was the Maysara Roseena, an Oregon rose wine. I don't often go for pink wines, even though they are du jour, but I couldn't resist the cold, fruity, crispness. According to the label, roseena is an "ancient Persian term for 'a woman who smells naturally of roses.'" I don't know much about how women smell, and usually women who smell like roses are old, but I thought this pink wine would be a nice complement to a shrimp alfredo sauce.


The fettuccine was creamy and rich, and the extra parmesan added an earthy flavor that made me want to gnaw on chunks of parmesan cheese. The wine's sweetness helped tone down the richness of the pasta, and after two servings of pasta, and two glasses of wine, I feel like I could probably bathe in both.

One downside to this recipe is that it is kind of a pain to make when the house is hot. Standing over the stove for 15 minutes doesn't sound like much, but I was pouring sweat, which I hope didn't make it into the sauce.

(Brad stole the camera for a self portrait.)

So, City Gay, if you feel like having a pasta that is fat enough to clog your arteries immediately, go with the homemade alfredo. And, in your search for good wines, I found it's good to not snub the pinks. Pink wines help create la vie en rose.

Fish and chips and vinegar... vinegar... vinegar...

Dear City Gay,

While Brad the Gay Gnome wasn't able to go to the coast with me, he was there in spirit, and if all goes well, he will soon make an appearance in a post later tonight or tomorrow. He even has an interesting addition to his wardrobe to add a little something to his appearances.

When a family trip was planned earlier in the year to go to the Oregon Coast, I began dreaming about eating nothing but clam chowder. I did eat my share during the week, but none of it was documented. I'm still figuring out how to not be too conspicuous while taking pictures in restaurants. Both times I took snapshots at meals, my family stared at me like I was a freak. However, they have been doing this since my grandma put lipstick on me when I was little, so I didn't think too much of it.

One gray morning, we headed to The Newport Aquarium where I stared at the shrimp and thought about how they would taste fried. I stared at this for awhile, but I didn't think about how it would taste:


Adjacent to the aquarium is the Rogue Brewery, which makes ales with "the finest hops and barley malt [and] free range coastal waters." Walking through a silo (perfect for howling like a wolf with a 2-year-old), one is immediately hit with the smell of brewing beer. For some the scent is intoxicating, for me it was a little nauseating. While I heartily enjoy drinking beer, the brewing smell is too bitter and sweet for my senses. The brewery's restaurant is sparse, but what it lacks in decor, it makes up with a nice selection of ale and coastal pub food. Because I'm weird, I opted for the Desolation I.P.A, a beer from Portland, rather than a locally brewed beverage. Some I.P.A.'s come off too strong, but this had a pretty moderate taste and went down smoothly with my fish and chips. The small cup of coleslaw that came with my lunch was bland and lacked the kick I enjoy in a nice slaw, but the fish was nicely fried, and the fish inside the breading was moist without being gushy.

(You'll have to ignore my dad's lumpy arm in the background, which makes the food less appetizing.)

After gorging myself on chowder and fish and chips, I moved to my other favorite seafood: fried shrimp. We ate at a restaurant connected to the Surftides hotel, where I ate enough shrimp and sourdough bread to make my stomach explode. The shrimp was tasty, though the breading was a bit too crispy, which caused some damage to the roof of my mouth. It's a small price to pay, I guess. I also had a piece of chocolate peanut butter pie to go, which made for a ridiculously rich breakfast the next morning. I wish I had photographed it before snarfing it because the chocolate ganache topping was good enough that I could have just eaten that without the peanut butter cream or the chocolate cookie crust.


Another staple for visitors to the Oregon Coast is Mo's, a restaurant with six locations that serves about 200 gallons of chowder a day. I ate plenty of chowder here, but I also indulged in fried shrimp and fries I ordered for dinner during our last night in Lincoln City. (Fried shrimp two nights in a row! Settle down, Country Gay!) The shrimp was meaty and crisp, just the way God intended shrimp to be eaten... or something.

The seafood extravaganza that is a trip to the coast has inspired my meal for tonight, a shrimp fettuccine alfredo, which Brad and I should be documenting for your viewing pleasure.

Keep on truckin',
Country Gay

I get by with a little help from my friends

A little friend may very well appear now and then in the Country Gay posts. He seemed ready to help himself to beer and cake this afternoon.