Recipes from Our Neighbors or You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up

This past summer the Pilgrims from St. Margaret Mary Church put together a book of their favorite recipes to sell in order to raise money to offset the cost of their World Youth Day trip. It was either a rousing success or a complete and total failure. I am not sure which. I only tell you that so that I have some sort of introduction to what I am about to write.

I found out that our good friends and neighbors have a great recipe for banana nut bread. It goes like this: go to the supermarket, buy a hand of bananas, bring them home, place them on the counter, let them ripen beyond "yellow", have neighbor Ann in, let her see the yellowish-brown bananas. At that point neighbor Ann says (like clock work), "If you aren't going to eat those brown bananas I'll make banana nut bread." At that very moment the good friend and neighbors respond, "I don't know why I buy so many bananas, no one eats them. Sure go ahead, bake the bread." Within minutes the wafting aroma of baking banana nut bread fills the neighborhood. By the following afternoon there is freshly baked banana nut bread at our good friend and neighbors house.

The story doesn't stop there. If good neighbor Ann walks in while a pot of water is boiling on your stove in the anticipation of a pound of semolina spaghetti, she will inquire about the type of sauce to be used. At this time good friend and neighbor will reply, "Oh, darn! I was supposed to get sauce and forgot!" No problem for neighbor Ann. She grabs fresh tomatoes from the garden along with supplements of crushed tomatoes from the pantry and quicker than you can say "Nuovo Vesuvio", voila, fresh, homemade sauce.

Another great recipe is to be a good neighbor and friend and show up as neighbor Ann is cleaning up after her own meal. Come into her kitchen, sit at her table and talk to her husband, neighbor Dan. Within minutes she will be offering you a plate of what ever the 'food du jour' was. If you politely decline when the unfed, hungry husband of the good friend and neighbor arrives to find his wife, he will also be offered the 'food du jour', the 'dessert du jour' and/or any and all leftovers in the Frigidaire. He eats it all and takes some along for his lunch tomorrow. Que sera, sera.

When you get right down to it, there is nothing at all wrong with these recipes. If everyone cooked this way the world would be a much better place. Glad we could be of service. -DD

PS - Upon arriving home from his annual doctors check-up, George Burns was asked, "What did the doctor have to say?" His reply, "He told me not to buy any green bananas."