“Mom, tell him, he isn’t giving me a piece of the cake!” my younger brother would wine. “At least eat lunch first” mom would say as she was looking at us kids eating one piece after another. When mom would bake a chocolate cake for shabbat, it would usually not survive Friday. “I got only two pieces and everybody got four already” my sister complained. “Leave at least some cake for your father” mom would say as she took what was left of the cake.
"Would you like some cake?” asked the waitress, “we have excellent cakes” she added. We looked at each other, trying to decide if to take a cake at all, and if so which one. Cafes weren’t places we went to often. Usually we would gather in the public park, close to the neighborhood kiosk.
The first time I had ever heard about banana bread was from an American friend in Paris way back in the ‘80s. The combination of bread and bananas sounded pretty weird. You put bananas on bread? What’s next, orange bread? “You’ve never had banana bread?” my friend asked in astonishment, looking at me as if I had a deprived childhood.
