Banana Scones
Ingredients
2 cups + 2 Tablespoons sifted all-purpose flour
2 ½ t. baking powder
½ t. salt
½ t. cardamom
½ t. Intrepid Bay ancient peppers and vanilla blend
¼ t. allspice
½ t. cinnamon
6 T. unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes
2 medium ripe bananas
⅓ cup brown sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment.
In a large mixing bowl, mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, and spices) and fully incorporate. Chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes, along with the cubed butter.
Pull out the dry ingredients and add the cubed butter. Use a pastry cutter to cut the butter into pea-sized crumbs. Work briskly so the butter doesn’t get warm, but also make sure the butter is finely cut into the mixture.
Place the bananas in a mixing glass and use a hand-blender to liquidize them thoroughly to a smooth liquid. Add the sugar, extract, and egg and blend further.
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the mixture into it. Stir with a fork until just combined. The mixture should be slightly sticky and a little crumbly but it should hold together. If it is too dry, add some milk, by the teaspoon. If it’s too wet, add a little flour. You don’t want too much. The dough needs to come together just enough. Not too dry, not too sticky. Be sure to NOT overwork the dough.
Transfer the mixture onto a lightly floured surface. Fold it or knead it once or twice if you need to, then form it into a ball and then flatten it into an 8 inch round with the open palm of your hand, working in a circular motion. The dough should be a half-inch inch or so thick.
Use a pastry scraper to cut the round disc into 8 pieces. Place the triangular pieces on the baking sheets and bake at 400°F for 12-15 minutes until slightly golden brown. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack for a few minutes before serving.
She was modern and boho and equal parts urban and green. Her fashion was a unique blend of streetwear and hemp. By all accounts, Susie was unapologetically weird and wonderful. The trouble was that you could not say the same thing for the guys in her town. They were either conservative, boring, or cardboard cutouts of whatever category you care to name. Preppy guy. Athleisure guy. Shlumpy guy. Hippy guy. Mountain Dew guy. Nerd guy. And she supposed that it was fine, but where were all the guys that really expressed themselves? Where could a person find the quirky ones? Date after date, she came home disappointed. She began lowering her standards, because maybe she was asking too much? Maybe there wasn’t an honest, quirky, sincere and fun guy out there who also did dishes. It seemed like she wasn’t asking for much, but over the course of three years she began to doubt such a creature existed.
But man problems were the least of her worries right now. Over the past two years she had been through a hellish breakup and the unexpected death of a close friend. The frame through which she viewed the world was permanently altered. Soon enough, her time on this planet would end, as would all the people she cared for. She spent her time trying to recover from the loss and grief, and more importantly, searching for a reason to continue. She would spend entire days in bed. She called in sick often, and her job was in jeopardy. She escaped by drinking alcohol and smoking up, and spent far too many nights falling asleep on her small couch. Her diet was terrible. Many days, she simply could not be motivated to care. She was mired in a pit of depressive emotional quicksand. The more she struggled, the more it pulled her in. Maybe she needed meaning. Maybe she needed to be left the hell alone. Maybe she needed her mom back. She knew one thing: she needed to find the way back. Occasionally she had just enough in the tank to pull it together and show up to work in a decent frame of mind, wearing something that didn’t have donut crumbs or toothpaste smeared on it.
She had friends that mostly talked about things they owned or people they got into an argument with on Twitter. She couldn’t help but think there were more interesting things to talk about instead of vapid consumerism and the ridiculous cacophonous string of headline drama that blasted through everyone’s screen. She felt she was drifting away from them, and from society. She was isolating and she knew it, but she was so goddamned tired of the shit show that she just couldn’t deal.
“Just come with me for a week! I rented this cute cabin in Tennessee,” chirped her friend Alyssa. Tennessee? What was in Tennessee? Alyssa gave her a flat look. “Nature!” With some cajoling, Susie reluctantly agreed. Maybe getting out of town would help. The next two weeks went by quickly, despite them being a carbon copy of the weeks before. The day before they were to leave, Alyssa called Susie. “I’m tho thorry Suuz. I think I got the ‘rona. I’m not going tomorrow. But you should go anyway because it’s stho beautiful dere…” Susie was at first completely perplexed. How much mucus did Alyssa have in her nasal passages? Then Susie thought about her options. She had already put in vacation. She was sick of her small apartment. She had to get out of her dull routine. “Fuck it.” She packed her bags.
Upon arriving in Benson’s Woods, Susie knew she had made the right decision. It was wild, beautiful, and wonderfully serene. At the end of a steep, winding wooded lane stood the cabin. It was as charming as the pictures in the listing. A wall of south facing windows framed the wondrous landscape of the Smoky Mountains. The bright cabin had a fully equipped kitchen, fireplace, and game room. The family room was cozy and tastefully decorated. Not too many bear skins. A complete absence of hotel art. Sturdy, well-constructed furniture that was neither cheap nor fussy. It was sensible and approachable. She found the whole cabin to be understated, well designed and comfortable. A balancing act of taste and restraint, which was something the country sorely needed, she thought. She finished unpacking in the master bedroom and took to scanning the bookshelves. The classics were there. Twain, Melville, Hemingway, Fitzgerald. Also Grisham and Clancy. Then she found A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor. “Now that’s interesting,” she thought. Her eyes fell upon a book she hadn’t seen before. The Art of Living Consciously. She took it off the shelf and opened it.
Today we are exposed to an unprecedented amount of information and an unprecedented number of opinions about every conceivable aspect of life. We are thrown on our own resources as never before -- and we have nothing to protect us but the clarity of our thinking. In The Art of Living Consciously, Branden gives us the tools with which to draw out the best within us.
“Bullshit.”
Susie flipped the book over her shoulder.
That evening she made pasta and ate alone, an opened bottle of cabernet her only companion. She sat on the front porch for a long time and listened to the birds and the sound of wind through the pines. She became aware of the pace of life, the perception that nothing was really happening when in fact a lot was happening. It was simply on a different scale. A long cycle. Susie thought about this dichotomy. People were now trained to operate on microcycles. Millions of people frantically switching their attention from one trivial thing to another. Their direction blown about carelessly by the trade winds of distraction and corporate “pivoting.” An entire society of people who might spend 50 years spinning in giant circles and illogical patterns, forming a web of life spun by an overcaffeinated and drunk spider with a VR headset.
As the evening cooled, she retired to the family room and watched 20th Century Women. After the movie she did the dishes and thought about what she had seen, the Jimmy Carter scene in particular. “Crisis of Confidence.”
She kept thinking about those phrases he used.
Growing doubt about the meaning of our lives…the loss of unity of purpose…
owning and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning…
piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose or dignity…
There are two paths:
The path that leads to fragmentation and self interest.
Down that road lies the mistaken idea of freedom. The right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others.
That path would be of constant conflict between narrow interests, ending in chaos and immobility—
a certain route to failure…
All the lessons of the past point to another path,
the path of common interest…
Purpose. Meaning. Clarity of thinking. Consciousness.
Consciousness.
She walked back into the family room, picked up the book and scanned it. She read one page. Two. She finished the book that night. She had vivid dreams, of visiting bright warm places with strange and beautiful people. Modern and green buildings in unfamiliar landscapes, architecture that lived in accordance with the laws of nature, coexisting without conflict. Solarpunk. A resort with a large giant observation deck overlooking mountain vistas and the ocean beyond. Giant aqua waves crashing on white sands. A large storm moving in. A giant tornado sweeping away everything in its path, and they had the best seats in the theater to watch it. A woman wearing white approaches. “An auspicious renewal.”
Susie woke as if from a 30 year sleep. The heaviest sleep she had had since she was a kid. She sat up and thought about last night. The movie. The book.
Maybe this book solved part of her puzzle. To her, the book could have been edited down to less than 50 pages. Living consciously to her meant taking control. Grabbing the wheel and being intentional with her direction. It meant getting her shit together and committing to thinking clearly about things and giving them their proper due, even if it meant being “slow” by society’s standards.
Whatever the case, the book reframed her problem in a way she hadn’t thought of before, and maybe—just maybe—this was a valid path to attain some sort of stability. To become better. To consciously and intentionally create some damn meaning in her life. That was worth something right? What the hell else did she have better to do with her time? She pulled on her favorite ratty hoodie from college, a well-worn Beastie Boys Check Your Head pullover.
She drove down to the village and decided to walk the little downtown area. The ideas started to come hot and fast. She hated her job. Maybe she should pursue something that actually interested her. So yeah. Upgrade the job. Get a better apartment. Start hanging out with quality people. Find some people who love the things I love. A common interest.
She walked past a charming coffee shop. “Perfect timing,” she thought. She ducked in. She waited patiently for the couple in front of her to order. It must have been their first time because it was taking them a long time to figure out what they wanted. The paradox of choice. This gave Susie time to study the menu, and more importantly study the cute barista. He was cool. Tasteful forearm tats of culinary devices. Cool hair. Tasteful stache. The most attractive thing about him was his demeanor. Calm, happy, serene. Intentional. Quick with the humor. She stole casual glances when she could. She looked behind him and caught a dog-eared paperback perched on the counter near the bean grinder. Conscious Loving. That word again. Is this some sort of omen?
“Hi what can I get for you?” Susie looked up to see him staring at her. “Oh, London Fog please.” Their eyes met and they held a knowing gaze for just a second. He smiled. “Sure. Good choice. I love those. Would you like anything else? I just made some banana scones and they’re still warm…” Susie broke her gaze and looked at the scones. “Oh yeah. Sure! that sounds good.” The barista nodded. “Great. You won’t be disappointed.” He looked over his shoulder as he steamed the milk. “Cool hoodie by the way.” Susie looked down. “Oh yeah, I’ve had this thing a long time as you can tell.” He smiled as he brought the drink to her. “Yeah that’s a cool album. If you’re into 90s hip hop, my friend is DJing over at the Fitzgerald tonight, just down the street. I usually avoid the scene but I go whenever he’s playing, because he’s so good. I’ll probably be there around 9. If you’re interested, maybe I’ll see you there?” Susie smiled and tried to hide the fact that her face was growing hot. The hot guy is inviting me to a club. “Hey, that sounds awesome! Yeah, sure I’ll check it out.” The barista smiled wide and nodded in approval. “Great. I’ll see you at 9.” Hot coffee guy is genuinely happy to know I’ll be there! Susie tried to hide her excitement as she left the coffee shop, her smile as wide as her shoulders. What the fuck just happened? She got back to her car, sat back in her seat, and tried the scone. Spicy, sweet, crumbly and buttery. This guy’s a keeper.