I know I promised philosophical insights and deep musings in this blog, but a man’s gotta eat. The amount he needs to eat goes up in direct proportion to the amount of work he’s doing – and I’m not just talking about physical work: even mental exertion burns a surprising amount of energy. Living the life of an amateur labourer and professional content-hack is the perfect energy-consuming double-whammy.

This level of calorific consumption can bring on a condition scientists call ‘hangry’ – a deep, bitter wrath at the world and everything in it, brought on by a lack of blood sugar. It’s a very real and pitiful affliction – especially for the nearest and dearest of the hangry individual. Just ask my wife. 

The good news is that hangriness (hangritude?) can be cured relatively easily via the consumption of food – or drink – of sufficient calorific density. And this brings me to chocolate-chip banana bread.

Here’s a close-up of some:

Daniela created this last night and we were careful to photograph it before it was all hoovered up. The recipe has been closely-guarded for millennia by a friend we’ll call Mary-Elizabeth (her real name). I’ve included details down below. Daniela throws in a handful of chocolate chunks for the benefit of the terminally hangry. “It also says to smash the bananas thoroughly,” she revealed in a recent interview, “but I like to put in larger chunks as well.”

When you’re deep in the throes of a hangry episode, a generous wedge of this delicious loaf will rocket you back into the sunlit uplands of cheeriness and good humour – especially still warm from the oven. It’s an almost . . . spiritual experience. It reminds me of that Gary Larson cartoon about the gorillas.

The fact that our very outlook on life – in fact, the actual universe as we perceive it – can be transformed by bread laced with delicious banana and studded with choccy, is a profound realisation about the nature of human existence. It tells us that the cosmos is a blank slate, devoid of positive or negative qualities, and all you need to transform it into a joyful symphony of rainbows and unicorns is a square meal – or a few starchy snacks, in a pinch.

With banana bread, there’s the added benefit of its incredible aroma. If Marcel Proust could be galvanised into penning 3,031 pages of reminiscence on his past life in seven volumes by the mere taste of a Madeleine (the confectionery, not an actual person), let me tell you that entering a home where banana bread is being baked is easily sufficient to wing me off into a 400-word blog post. Then I need a siesta.

Hey – we managed to get philosophical about bananas! Truly, it is the simple things that gild this lily that is life.

Mary-Elizabeth’s Banana Bread

2 cups plain flour
        3/4 teaspoon bicarb soda
        1/2 teaspoon salt
        1 cup dark brown sugar
        1/2 cup butter, softened
        2 large eggs (room temp)
        1 1/2 cups bananas, very ripe and mashed (about 3 bananas)
        1/3 cup sour cream or greek yoghurt
        1 teaspoon vanilla
        1 teaspoon cinnamon
        1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1.      Heat oven to 170C
2.      Grease a loaf tin.
3.      Sift flour, soda, salt, spices into a bowl
4.      Put eggs into a bowl and whisk
5.      Cream butter and sugar in mixer
6.      Add eggs one at a time
7.      Add yoghurt or sour cream
8.      Add sifted dry ingredients.
9.      Bake for an hour (check at 50 min)
10.     Cool in pan for 5 min (run knife around the edge)
11.     Turn out & enjoy the transformation of your universe