Isabella's Banana Bread

A Short Story + Recipe

Note: This story is for Isabella. Though she doesn’t exist, I love her very much. P.S. Her famous banana bread recipe is waiting for you at the end of the story. ♥️

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I am just an old, scratched up baking pan. But I am Isabella’s beloved baking pan, and that’s a fact I take great pride in.

I am 10 years old in case you’re wondering, and when Isabella picked me up from the store, I was all shiny and black. I had a bright red painted heart in the very center of my being.

The heart was why Isabella picked me up at the store. She was looking for the perfect baking pan for her banana bread, and there I was waiting for someone to take me home.

I remember the exact moment I met Isabella. I felt her scent waft around the shelves as she looked around. It reminded me of the bright oranges I once sat next to in the truck.

Then I heard her sweet voice.

“Oh my, this is perfect for my banana bread,” she said. Then she picked me up with her soft, gentle hands. For me, it was love at first touch.

I know it was the heart that made her pick me up, because that’s what she would say later to her husband. My red heart. She loved me. I was special.

For even though I could not see, I could feel, hear, and sense. Sometimes if I concentrated enough, I could even hear Isabella’s thoughts. But only Isabella’s because she and I, were baking soulmates.

I felt excited and nervous, as she placed me on the checkout counter. After a momentary ride on the scanner, I reached the cashier. The cashier picked me up roughly, turning me over, and scanned my bar code. Well, that was rude.

“That’ll be $20.99,” said the cashier, “Will it be card or cash?”

I could hear a crinkling sound of paper as Isabella handed over the money. There was a rattling of coins being returned to her, and once more Isabella picked me up and placed me gently into a tote bag.

The bag felt soft and safe. I could sense the sweet scent of bananas and cinnamon. I wasn’t alone.

Oh my, I was finally going home. My purpose was coming to life. This is what I’d been waiting for my entire life.

So Isabella brought me home, and I became a part of her family. As soon as we got home, I recognized the lemony scent of freshly mopped floors and roast chicken. I shivered in anticipation, wondering what deliciousness Isabella would bake inside of me.

But to my surprise, she washed me first. I’d never been washed before, the warm soapy water tickling my insides. I didn’t really like it, but if Isabella thought this was an important step, then it was.

Isabella became everything for me. She was the only one in the cottage who took care of me. But I would like to think the entire family loved me because I baked great banana bread, golden crusty on top, moist from the inside.

At first it was just Isabella and her husband who lived there. I couldn’t really tell what the cottage looked like but I knew it was a cottage because Isabella and her husband often referred to our home as ‘the cottage’.

Isabella had first brought me home on a cold winter’s afternoon. It had been freezing, and my body turned brittle cold. I didn’t like it all, but then after a long ride home, Isabella grabbed the tote bag I was nestled in.

I heard the keys turning, and a door creaking open. The tote bag jostled me as Isabella walked into the cottage, and a toasty warmth enveloped me. There was a fire crackling away somewhere, perhaps a fireplace. I had heard of those things in the warehouse I used to live in a long time ago.

“I found the perfect baking pan at the store today,” she said. She was talking to someone else in the cottage, as she took me out of the tote bag and placed me on cold marble. He smelled of pine and coffee, but I preferred Isabella’s heady scent - orange mixed with coconut.

“It has the perfect red heart painted on it,” she told him.

“Banana bread, tonight?”, a deep voice replied. Later I would learn that this voice belonged to Isabella’s husband.

That evening, after being thoroughly washed and dried, I sat on the counter, patiently waiting for Isabella to give me attention. She wasn’t around because I couldn’t sense her citrusy scent.

Maybe she wouldn’t bake anything today, I thought to myself. I’d been so excited to produce an excellent baked product for Isabella tonight. I wanted to please her. I wanted to show her that I belonged to her and in her kitchen.

Maybe she was tired. She should rest, I thought to myself. I loved her. I just wanted the best for her, not for me.

Just as I’d resigned myself to being forgotten, I heard the sound of feet.

She was humming, and that same citrusy scent washed over me as she came closer. There was a clatter of dishes and baking tools being taken out of the drawer.

Then she slid me closer to her, and I felt a slick liquid trickle onto my base.

“A little bit of oil to coat the pan so the banana bread doesn’t stick,” she murmured.

I felt the soft bristles of a brush, perhaps, and she spread the oil all over my insides. What a feeling it was for me, to not be dry anymore. I felt alive. Then she put me aside. I was prepped and ready for the batter.

I heard the clink of a fork mashing sweet, ripe bananas into a bowl. Then came the crack of two eggs. A beep from the microwave, and the nuttiness of melted better perfumed the kitchen. Brown sugar and cinnamon came next.

The batter being whisked was music to my ears. We were getting close. I’d heard a hot oven was the best place ever for us pans. I used to dream of this moment while I lived in the baking store.

A paper bag rustled. There was a cloud of flour everywhere as she measured out the correct amount.

“One and three-fourth cups” she mumbled to herself. “Remember not to over mix the batter.”

With a final whisking, the banana bread batter was ready.

I cannot tell you how I felt in the next few moments, as the thick, velvety batter was poured into me. The scent of cinnamon, the sugary scent of bananas mixed with vanilla, was everything.

I felt Isabella pick me up with careful hands - oh how I loved those hands.

And the next moment was the best of my life. She carefully placed me on the steel rack of the oven.

It was so bright, so hot in there.

Oh how I loved the scalding heat, the burning rack underneath me, the heat embracing me fully.

“See you in fifty minutes,” I heard Isabella say, before she shut the oven door. I never wanted to come out of this oven, I thought to myself.

But I loved Isabella, so maybe I wouldn’t want to stay away from her too long.

The batter rose inside me, climbing up my sides, and then it puffed. Minutes passed as I basked in the heat. The crust became golden, and sweet perfume rose out of me.

I heard the oven door being opened, cold air rushing in. I didn’t like that too much. I never did like the cold.

Isabella with gloved hands grabbed my piping hot sides, and carefully placed me on something soft.

“It looks perfect,” she said.

Then she left me to ‘cool down’ on the counter because that’s what the recipe said. I know because that’s what she said to her husband who was too eager to slice the bread up.

Time ticked by, and I anxiously waited to hear the verdict. After all, it was because of me that the banana bread was made. If it weren’t for me, there wouldn’t be this perfect banana bread.

That night, Isabella’s husband declared it was the best banana bread ever.

And that’s how the tradition began. A banana bread for every time there were three ripe bananas. Isabella (and I) became known for the best banana bread ever.

Seasons passed, winter bloomed into spring, and summer came with its warm balmy evenings.

Isabella’s family became bigger, first by a daughter, then a son. Years passed. I wasn’t as shiny anymore, and there were scratches all over my body.

Somedays Isabella would throw in a few chocolate chips or chopped walnuts into the batter. Isabella would tinker with the recipe every now and then, but she never let go of me. I was her trusty pan, as she used to often say.

But one day everything changed.

Isabella stopped coming into the kitchen.

I remember her coming home with her husband one day, the door slamming and the sound of keys clattering onto the counter. I was in the cabinet next to the mixing bowls and measuring cups. So I couldn’t hear much, but I could sense the grief cast in the air like a heavy cloud.

I heard her weeping. My Isabella, my baker, was heartbroken. I could hear it in her quiet cries.

Something terrible must have happened.

That day the coldest winter of my life began. I lay forgotten, in the corner of the dark, drafty cabinet.

At first I thought Isabella had replaced me with another baking pan. After all I was a beat up, scratched pan. Why would she want me anymore? If I’d had a real heart it would have broken up into a million pieces.

Thank God, I didn’t have a real heart. I couldn’t have beared it.

Maybe she didn’t like how the red painted heart in the center of my very being was fading? Maybe I wasn’t producing perfect banana bread anymore. Maybe it was all my fault.

But no. My Isabella wasn’t one to be so careless. She was kind, and loving.

So then I started paying even more attention to what was happening around me. Now this was a difficult thing to do when one is all locked up in a cabinet. But I concentrated hard.

I realized that Isabella had stopped coming into the kitchen at all. She wasn’t cooking up a feast anymore. There were some new voices too, and a presence in the kitchen I didn’t recognize.

This new presence reminded me of Isabella, but it wasn’t quite the same.

I missed Isabella. I missed our time in the kitchen. I missed basking in the heat of the oven. But do you know what I missed the most? I missed Isabella’s soft voice and gentle hands. I missed her humming. I missed the scent of cinnamon. I missed it all so much.

Somedays the cabinet door would creak open, alerting my senses. But her hands never reached for me.

Because they weren’t her hands at all. These hands felt old and wrinkly as they moved me around to reach something else in the back.

Soon my hope faded into resignation. Isabella wasn’t coming back for me. So I lay there, in the cabinet, collecting dust.

I tried not to remember how clean Isabella used to keep me or how it felt to go into that scalding oven.

The cottage had gone so quiet. Sometimes I’d hear the children but even they spoke in soft tones.

I could always hear the clocking ticking now because it was so silent.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

I must have heard the hands of the clock moving a million times.

At some point in that dark lonely corner of the cabinet, I stopped hoping.

Perhaps this was the end for Isabella and I. All good things come to an end, don’t they? And so as the layer of dust thickened upon me, I nestled into a deep sleep.

Perhaps this would make the time go by faster.

I tried to pretend I was asleep and the last years hadn’t happened at all. I’d never had a home, I’d never been loved. I’d never gone into the oven. I erased it all from my being. The memories, the cozy evenings, her scent, the touch of her slender fingers.

I think if I could have weeped, the cabinet would have been flooded with my salty tears, drenching the wooden shelves, the whisk and measuring cups floating in the sea of my despair.

Then one day it happened.

The moment that I’d pretended to stop hoping for.

The cabinet door creaked open, letting soft light in. I tried not to take much notice of it, because it was probably someone else reaching for a mixing bowl or a baking tray.

But then I sensed her citrus scent drift in, and hope flooded through me.

Please pick me. Choose me. I begged.

As if she could hear me, in the next moment, I felt her hands reach out to me.

With her soft, gentle hands she placed me on the sunlit counter. Warmth washed over me. It was golden hour, I could sense from the way the counter was barely warm.

My Isabella had come back for me.

She hadn’t forgotten me. There was a lingering sadness around her, but she was real and she was here.

She was quiet. Too quiet. But she was here. She was here. That’s all that mattered.

I heard her take out the mixing bowl. I heard buttermilk being poured into a measuring cup.

Then, after so long, I felt the the slick liquid pour over my faded heart. I felt the familiar brush coating all my sides and crevices. How wonderful it felt not to be so bare and dry anymore.

I waited patiently for Isabella to prepare the banana bread batter. She was slower than before, I sensed. But that was okay. She was here and that’s all we needed. Her and I. Once more in the kitchen, together.

I can’t choose which moment was my favorite. The cabinet door opening, or the velvety batter being poured into me. Or was it the oil that coated me, protecting me from the batter sticking?

Perhaps it was being placed in that piping hot oven after so long.

No.

I know what my favorite moment was.

It was when she took me out of the oven, and placed me on the counter.

Why?

Because that’s when Isabella started humming.