Scene: Back porch.10am. You're busy organising your lesson for tomorrow on privacy law and confidentiality as it pertains to writers. You're having a delicious piece of home-baked cake and a cup of coffee with just a hint of vaniila.
Enter: creepy bird.
This is not the first time creepy bird has crept up on you. Once he and a friend advanced on you so eerily that you had flashes of Hitchcock's The Birds and you retreated to the safety of indoors.
Not today. Today you will stay. Today you will fight.
Creepy bird has already been shooed out of your indoor sanctuary that morning. He's getting bold.
Creepy bird leaps onto the table and creeps ever closer to your delicious cake....
But you are vigilant. You watch closely, munching the cake. He creeps over to your left hand side. You bang the table and ask him politely to leave.
He merely jumps on the chair next to you. You move your cake to the right hand side and continue your surveillance. He cocks his head and looks at your cake. Eventually you relax. He's not pecking your eye out, nor is he getting tangled in your hair. If he moves a muscle you will spring into action.
Or so you think.
Suddenly, when you least expect it and you're deep in the subchapter of telecommunications and tapping phones, a flash of black and white explodes from your periphery, almost hitting your nose. It swoops down over your plate, clutching his prize in his beak and dropping it mere inches from you. Eating it. Triumphant. Ignoring you.
When you've recovered from your heart attack and your cardiovascular system calms down, you mourn your loss, cut another slice of cake, reheat what's left of your coffee and marvel at how delicious your cooking is even the wildlife risk their necks in order to eat it.
It is only fair that you share the recipe. It comes with a bird warning.
Ingredients:
1 cup raw sugar
2 tablespoons honey (or another 1/4 cup sugar)
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
3-4 medium ripe bananas
1/2 cup milk
2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp salt
450g can crushed pineapple, drained
A sprinkle of nutmeg and cinnamon (optional)
Method:
Preheat oven to 180C
1. Mix sugar, honey, butter, eggs, bananas and milk.
2. Add flour and salt and stir.
3. Add drained pineapple, nutmeg and cinnamon, if using.
4. Pour into cake tin and bake 45 minutes. Test after this as it may need a little longer.
You can substitute the pineapple with apple, pear, peach... any fruit almost. Or leave it completely out. It makes a good, moist cake that's not overly sweet. You can frost it, or just smear it with butter, like I do, and keep out of reach of birds.
Adapted from Betty Crocker Bananaberry Bread
