This past week was banana bread baking week for me.

The other day, my husband went to the freezer and was startled at the sight of nearly twenty frozen ripe and over-ripe bananas perched like plantain spiders next to the ice.  He came to me with questions.  Considering I’ve been tossing bananas that are past their prime in there for months, I had a few questions of my own:

1) Why do we buy so many bananas when we can’t possibly eat them all?

2) Why did he just now notice?

and 3) What am I going to do with them?

While the first two questions may remain unsolvable mysteries, the third question has a delicious solution: banana bread.  I love making special breads of all types like this very festive cranberry-orange bread or this sweet potato spice loaf, but banana bread holds a special place in my heart (and, apparently, in my freezer).  My mother used to make banana bread en masse around the holidays and hand them out to our teachers and neighbors.  Now, I do the same, adding in muffins or smaller loaves.  Banana bread baking week is also the one time of the year when I am willing to put aside my reservations and use that good ol’ Southern staple: vegetable shortening.  I revel in the familiar recipe and the pleasant memories of home evoked during the process.

Home. I imagine that people have various criteria for what makes a certain house or apartment a “home”.  To me, having beautiful scents drift from the kitchen during this time of the year is a must.  Something else that I associate with turning a house into a home is a name.  Not like, “Carrie the Condominium” or “my apartment Jason” but a name that fits the place.  Again, this might be my Southern roots pulling at me, but I spent time on ranches called things like “Bear Creek” or “Canyon Way”.  The names are often very descriptive of either the land or the owners.  My parents have a house outside of San Antonio.  Having met while in the military and moved every two to three years of their married life, when they finally settled down and built their retirement home they christened it “Landfall,” an old navy term for when a ship comes into home port after many months or years at sea.  Fitting, yes?

I think that the Rodelle house, the one on their label that looks like a French chateau, needs a name too!  When I first started to use Rodelle I didn’t even remember their name, but I remembered the chateau on the bottle.  My husband was once sent to the store with directions to bring back “that vanilla that has a chateau on the front”.  Such a memorable home (which I am sure smells fantastic) deserves an unforgettable name.  What do you all think?  Write in with your name suggestions for our chateau!

Laura