Banana On Toast

Banana on toast

As you are probably aware, it has been very cold and icy and snowy lately. Very cold and snowy and icy. There have been warnings, snow warnings and yellow snow warnings. Imploring people to be careful, wrap up warm, don't make unnecessary road trips and on any account, please do not eat yellow snow. Weathermen stare out, gravely, from our screens, frowning, clenching their red button remotes and with undertones of fear and dread expound upon the horrors of 'freezing rain'. Rain that actually freezes. Can you believe it? Via Twitter and Facebook, we regularly get updates of snow that is snowing in people's gardens, pictures of snow. Reports that it is snowing over here. And over there too. Supplies are running low, trains can barely cope, planes are grounded and hospitals can't cope, cats won't go outside to do their business and dogs sadly bite at snow, with no real success of getting a meal. No, you really can't miss the fact that the country is currently gripped by a Siberian fist, which is slowly squeezing, squeezing and freezing the very life out of this fair land.

Unless you work for the council that is. In which case you will be totally oblivious to the nation's plight and won't have even bothered to get your arse into gear and get the gritters to come down my road. No, Havering Council, you are probably far too busy sitting in your wonderfully warm offices, wearing Hawaii shirts and shorts, drinking cocktails.

I gripe.

But despite all the terrible weather we have to endure at the moment (and it really is terrible), the great thing is that we can get away with eating pretty much whatever we want. Biscuits, cake, crisps, pork scratchings, pork pies, pork products in general, lard, the brown gloopy stuff that remains on the bottom tray in the oven, you name it. Because it is all energy. We need the energy to cope with this current crisis. And lately, I have been reverting back to that childhood fave, banana on toast. I have had it every morning since the Big Freeze hit us and I can't get enough of it. Bread, toasted until it's nicely, toasted. Salted butter (and it must be salted) slathered across and melted into crunchy, slightly carbonised pores. And then sliced, ripe, sweet banana, mashed in, sometimes to a gooey pulp. Gorgeous. It might be beneficial to spread some peanut butter on too, you know for the all important calorific blast. It's all energy remember. But I am a bit of purist when it comes to banana on toast. Like all good things, you need to keep it simple.

After munching away on a couple of slices and before trudging out into the bleak, harsh winter, in my Aldi snow boots, I always like to utter the immortal line - "I am just going outside and I may be sometime."

But I always come back.