… since they have been duly peeled, sliced up and then buried in cups of cottage cheese with covers in the fridge. But now the house reeks of the sickening smell of overripe bananas. I went to the grocery store mid-week and laid in more provisions in case the wintry weather keeps me housebound until I dare venture out in my car again. As you know from reading my posts, snow gets me frenzied and fractious, so every year I stock up on pantry items when the weather is favorable and just go to the store occasionally for fresh food all Winter. Meijer did an admirable job of remodeling their produce department from top to bottom, but on the day I was there, the large counter was brimming over with bright green bananas … every last one of them. Well, I brought home a bunch anyway and snagged a large brown paper bag when I was packing up my groceries, having remembered my mom’s old trick of tucking a couple of oranges along with green bananas into a paper bag to speed up the ripening process. Once home, I broke apart the bunch of bananas and tossed them in the bag and loaded two of my Cara-Cara oranges into the sack and crumpled down the top and put it into a warm and dark hall cupboard. I peeked into the bag on Thursday night; they were gettin’ there, but still tinged with green so I fastened the bag up tight once more. I peered into the brown paper bag this morning and had one moldy orange and a large bunch of speckled bananas meaning they would be overly sweet … and mushy. Well, so much for momisms. I suppose if the bag trick didn’t work out for Mom, those freckled-up bananas would be relegated to banana bread batter and in record time a loaf of moist banana bread was creating a delightful aroma in the kitchen. I’d have a treat for breakfast or lunch of generous slices of banana bread with a half-inch layer of peanut butter. Yum! Well, I am no Betty Crocker so making banana bread was not an option. I generally peel and slice all my bananas at one time and plop them into cups of cottage cheese so I have ready-made treats for snacks – less muss and fuss that way. While I am slicing, I steal the equivalent of one or two whole bananas in bites as I am preparing the cups. I do hate to waste food, so I set to work on my task today, almost expecting fruit flies to magically appear and buzz around the kitchen. Well, after I peeled all those sad-looking bananas, while they were laying like logs on the paper towel awaiting my knife, I now know how Joey Chestnut feels when he gazes down at the pile of hot dogs just before the annual 4th of July Nathan’s Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest. There was absolutely no a-PEEL at all.