A chilly September rain had been tap, tap, tapping Grand Forks all evening; but inside the Kosior house, things were really heating up.

“This is for tomorrow’s breakfast,” I announced loudly as I pulled a loaf of banana bread from the oven.  “Tomorrow.”

My banana bread recipe was tried, true, and beloved.  It had been clipped from a newspaper column written by an Old Order Amish author named Lovina Eicher some eighteen years back, when newspapers were paper and Amish cookbooks weren’t distributed by Amazon.  I had amended the recipe over the years – I may have told you that one of my attempts to lower the sugar tinted that variation of bread pink – until I had perfected it to my family’s tastes.  The good news (for me) was that my family loved my banana bread.  The bad news (for the banana bread) was the same.

“Banana bread lives here at its own peril,” Kyle told me from his spot on the couch.

Not thirty seconds later, Eleven appeared out of nowhere.

“Is the banana bread ready?”  He asked, sniffing the air like a puppy.

“Yes, for breakfast tomorrow,” I said, turning away so as not to see my little pup stick out his bottom lip.

“Aww,” Eleven said.  “Can I just try one piece for now?  For poison?”

“For poison” was a family term; if we wanted to eat something that didn’t belong to us, we justified our consumption as “testing for poison.”  While the Kosiors were currently batting a thousand on poison-free foods, we remained diligent.

“I can confirm no poison here,” I said.  “Besides, it’s too hot to eat right now.”

“I’ll come back,” Eleven said.

“You’re probably going to have to hide it,” Kyle said.  “So we don’t have a repeat of…”  He gestured to the neighbor’s house.

A new family had moved into the house next door.  I had baked two banana bread loaves in celebration; one for the neighbors, and one for us.  I had set the Kosior loaf on a very conspicuous bread plate with a knife next to it on the counter.  I had wrapped the neighbor loaf in tinfoil and set it as far away from the other Kosior loaf as humanly possible to await the return of the neighbors, who had gone away for the weekend.  By the end of the day, the Kosior loaf was three-quarters gone.  By the next morning, the neighbor loaf had been opened and a giant slice, basically the slice of the loaf, had been cut out.  Fifteen had taken full credit.

“I thought it was for us,” Fifteen had said, not really at all apologetically.  “Because.”

Back in the present, Eleven came back.

“I’m very hungry,” he said, looking pathetic.

“Dinner will be ready in a few minutes,” I told him.

“I can’t wait that long,” he said.  “Can I have one teeeeeeeny-tiny piece of banana bread?”

“Okay,” I sighed.  “A teeny tiny one.”

He cut himself off a not-really-teeny-tiny piece and hoovered it down before he left the kitchen.

“He must be growing,” Kyle said, winking.

I sighed again, and cut him off another piece to put on his dinner plate.

When the supper bell was rung, Fifteen arrived last.  He eyeballed Eleven’s banana bread but didn’t say anything.  Midway through the meal, while Eleven was facing away from his plate to tell me a story, Fifteen slowly slid the uneaten banana bread off Eleven’s plate and took a bite.  Eleven, who figured it out almost immediately, looked at me with indignance.

“No problem, there’s more,” I said.  I cut Eleven another piece.

“Can I have another piece, too?”  Fifteen said.

I cut Fifteen another piece.  Kyle looked like he wanted to ask for a piece but decided against it.  After dinner, I wrapped up what remained of the banana bread and abandoned my guard post to take a bath.

“Did the banana bread make it breakfast?”  I asked Kyle as I packed up for work.

“Yes,” Kyle said.  “Although now it’s gone.”

“That’s the kicks, I guess,” I said.  “I’ll make another tomorrow.”

Outside, the rain had started up again, tap, tap, tapping softly against the windows.

Here’s the banana bread recipe:

Preheat the oven to 325. Grease a bread loaf pan.

Mix together 3 over-ripe bananas (I freeze and then defrost them first to make them extra smushy), 1/2 C white sugar, 1 egg, and 1/4 C melted butter. Once combined, stir in 1-1/2 C flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt. If you feel like it, mix the dry goods together first before putting them in the wet mixture; it doesn’t make any difference, though. You can also mix in chocolate chips or nuts or dried fruits if you want. You don’t need to change anything about the recipe if you do that. Then bake for 45 minutes to an hour. I start checking it at 45 minutes. Enjoy!

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The photo above has absolutely nothing to do with anything but I needed a photo and didn’t take one of the banana bread in time. I sent the photo above to Kyle to let him know I was getting my hair did, so I guess Kyle – the poor guy who got zero banana bread – is the connector here.

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This week on North Dakota Today we talked about Joe Stickler, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as the fantastic way the Grand Forks Historical Society recently brought history to life. (Valley News Live)

This is a fun read: Alexander’s Ben Honstein is restoring a 1963 crop sprayer designed by North Dakota inventor Ernest LaRoque. (KFYR TV)

Bottineau’s David Hoff is back on the ice. (KX Net)

A little story of North Dakota Niceness in Grand Forks. (Facebook)

North Dakota’s Evelyn Wisner’s work during World War II is featured in a new book entitled, “The Flight of the Nurses’ War.”

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