Around this time, six years ago, a terrible storm brought me the gift of a banana rhizome. I brought it home, and planted it. Two groves grew from it, and started fruiting last year although the first batches were small and immature.
This is the first time that the bunches are heavy with full-sized fruits. This is also the first time that I'm doing the harvest and ripening procedure myself. (I did the harvest during a stormy weather too.) The entire batch has fully ripened.
These past few days, perhaps one half of my total food consumption has been bananas -- eaten fresh as dessert and snack; peeled, sliced and cooked into sugar-coated fritters, and integrated into a vegetable stew.
But since my household can only consume a small portion, I brought the bigger share to the main office where I work.
In the past two days, I've been supervising training session of journalism interns. And since it has been a tradition in this office where I work, that we take turns cooking meals for lunch, one of my workmates volunteered to cook the entire batch of bananas into a really satisfying afternoon snack for 15 people.
So while I continued to discuss with these young interns (during the snack break) the politics of Third-World community journalism, they were also devouring with gusto my bananas, which also happen to be the ultimate fruit export product of a few Third World countries to the West.
So there. A banana addict and amateur grower, giving a lecture to banana-eating interns, about the vagaries of banana journalism under a banana republic.
The banana cycle is complete. The banana saga has been told, and will be retold, again and again.
Oh. I was supposed to be sharing some banana recipes, wasn't I?
Yeah... well... I'm so full of bananas right now, that another look at another banana recipe may cause me to retch and puke. One more mention of the word "banana" and I'll scream. So... can we do this later? Yes? Ok. Later... :-)
