Soft Banana Bread Cookies

Week 489, and the tomatoes ripening, the corn arriving, the garden in full production, the heat in the kitchen. I am 68 years old and the days have a rhythm now — the morning writing, the afternoon visits to Cedarhurst, the evening cooking, the weekly blog post — and the rhythm is the structure, and the structure is the sanity, and the sanity is required because the rest of it, the losing and the loving and the carrying, requires a sane woman at the helm, and I am sane, mostly, except when I cry in the car in the Cedarhurst parking lot, which is not insanity but its opposite: the specific, targeted release of emotion in a contained space, which is the most rational thing I do all week.

92nd Street Y event; audience of 200; talking about chain. These are the facts of the week, the data points, the things I would put in a report if I were writing a report, which I am not — I am writing a life, and the life includes the facts but is not limited to them, because the life also includes the way the kitchen smells at six in the morning when the coffee is brewing and the challah is rising and the house is quiet and the quiet is both the grief and the peace, simultaneously, and the simultaneous is the condition, the permanent condition of a woman who is 68 and alone and not alone, who is a grandmother and a wife and a writer and a cook and a caregiver and all of these things at once, always at once, braided together like the challah.

I made brisket this week — because it was what the week needed, because the week always needs something and the something is always food, and the food is always the answer, and the answer is always the kitchen, and the kitchen is always mine, and the mine-ness of the kitchen is the one thing that has not changed in sixty-seven years of living, from Sylvia's kitchen on the Grand Concourse to this kitchen in Oceanside where I stand every morning and every evening and many of the hours in between, making the food that is the chain, that is the love, that is the thing I do when I don't know what else to do, which is always, and especially now.

I brought food to Marvin at the usual time. The visit was what visits are now — quiet, steady, the feeding by hand when necessary, the reading aloud always, the holding of the hand that may or may not know it is being held but that is warm and alive and present, which is the definition of love in this particular year: warm and alive and present. He ate what I brought. He received what I gave. The receiving is the relationship. The receiving is the vow. In sickness and in health, in recognition and in forgetting, in the recliner and in the kitchen, the receiving is the marriage, and the marriage continues, one container at a time, one visit at a time, one day at a time, at two o'clock, every day, because the chain does not break.

The brisket was for Marvin — it always is — but the cookies were for me, or for the week, or for the particular silence of a kitchen at six in the morning when you need your hands to be doing something gentle. I had two bananas going soft on the counter, which in this kitchen is never a problem and never a waste, because a soft banana is just a cookie waiting to happen, and the cookie is the answer the same way the brisket is the answer, the same way the challah is the answer: you make the thing, you bring it, you hold the hand, you continue. These soft banana bread cookies are what I made after I came home from Cedarhurst on Thursday, when the day needed sweetness and I had exactly what it required.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 27 minutes | Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients

2 very ripe bananas, mashed (about 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and brown sugar together with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes.
Add wet ingredients. Mix in the mashed banana, egg, and vanilla extract until well combined. The mixture will look slightly curdled — that is normal.
Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
Mix together. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Do not overmix. Fold in walnuts and/or chocolate chips if using.
Scoop cookies. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Gently flatten each mound slightly with the back of a spoon.
Bake. Bake for 11–13 minutes, until the edges are set and just beginning to turn golden. The centers may look slightly underdone — they will firm up as they cool.
Cool. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Soft Banana Bread Cookies — The Kitchen Is Always Mine