The Banana Bread That's Secretly a Chocolate Cake

Plus: Disneyland Eats, Sudi's Nowruz Party, and Grossy Pelosi's Spinach-Artichoke Pasta Bake.

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the newsletter delay! We went to Disneyland on Sunday (more on that in a sec) and I couldn’t get it together for Monday’s newsletter.

But here I am with a delightful recipe that’ll put a smile on your face the second you make it. It’s a The Ultimate Chocolate Banana Bread from Jessie Sheehan’s wonderful cookbook, Snackable Bakes. Here’s a quick video I made of the process:

@amateurgourmetThe Ultimate Chocolate Banana Bread! Recipe in my bio. #baking #chocolate #foodtok #fyp #foryoupage #food #bananabread #chocolatelover #easyrecipes

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And here’s THE RECIPE ITSELF, fully printable and a cinch to make. I wish I had some leftovers for breakfast, but we ate the whole thing in about three days. It’s that good.

Now let’s talk Disneyland!

We went with Craig’s whole family (his parents, his brother, his aunt Liz, his sister, sister’s boyfriend, and boyfriend’s kids). Needless to say, it was a lot of work getting ten people on the rides at once, especially using the Genie app which was very confusing and often frustrating. I miss the good old days of just waiting in line.

Let me cut to the chase about the food: it was all totally fine, but the thing that I truly loved was the loaded Dole-Whip with chile-mango, chamoy, and actual pieces of mango (you can see it in the foreground.)

I’m going to make a TikTok about all this, so look out for that on my account.

On Saturday night, we attended two dinners if you can believe it.

The first was at our neighbor Sudi Green’s, where she hosted a Nowruz party celebrating the Persian New Year.

There was so much good food, including stuffed grape leaves, an eggplant dip, and kuku sabzi (frittata with herbs). The tahdig was prepared by one of the Three Busy Debras, Mitra Jouhari:

And topped with Ghormeh Sabzi, Persian herb stew, it was a dinner unto itself. Plus there was dessert:

And that was just dinner number one!

Dinner number two took place at our friends’ Ryan and Jonathan’s, and Jonathan whipped up Grossy Pelosi’s spinach artichoke pasta bake.

It’s like a trip to Houston’s and your favorite Italian restaurant all wrapped up into one! Everyone went nuts for it. If you’re looking for a crowdpleaser, look no further.

And now for today’s links:

• Pemmican: History’s Power Bar (Kottke.org);

• America’s Test Kitchen lays of 23 employees (Eater);

• The Man Who Changed the Way L.A. Eats (Ruth Reichl);

• Compound Ghee Makes Things Interesting (Taste).

That’s all for today, folks….

If you’re not a paid subscriber, you’ve been missing out on my daily diet dispatch, Operation Muffin Stud.

If you’d like to receive that, plus gain access to my full archives, and get my Thursday Amateur Gourmet newsletter too, become a paid subscriber now.

Until next time….

Your friend,

Adam