Commercially grown bananas are green, hulking, 8-inch-plus
behemoths with nary a spot on their smooth, firm skin. Homegrown
bananas — at least in my home — are half that size, and so cute
and plushy that you want to poke a finger into their freckled
skin like the Pillsbury Doughboy. While some sources say that
bananas lose texture and flavor as they’re left to ripen on
trees, I don’t always agree. After eating many a store-bought
banana that has ripened off the plant, that first tree-ripened
(or more accurately, stalk-ripened) banana from my backyard
tastes like a creamy marshmallow. In fact, my favorite campfire
dessert is a banana, split in half and stuffed with mini
marshmallows, chocolate chips, and peanut butter, then wrapped
in foil and roasted over a fire. Talk about creamy. But I
digress. It didn’t seem so long ago that I was looking at a
bloom of beautiful banana flowers. Banana berries (remember that
nifty tidbit?) soon appeared, and seemingly overnight an entire
bunch had ripened and I couldn’t eat