When sweet, juicy strawberries finally arrive in spring, my husband will choose to eat a banana instead. When I can’t get my fill of peaches, plums, apricots, and candy-sweet pluots in the height of summer, my hubster still prefers a banana. In fact, hardly ever varying from habit, he eats a banana just about every morning.

Go figure.

It’s not that he doesn’t like other fruit. It’s not even that bananas are his favorite thing in the world to eat. It’s just that — how can I put this delicately — he’s lazy. Oh, believe me, he will be the first to admit that he is. Go ahead, ask him. Why go to the trouble of washing and slicing other fruit, he will tell you, when a banana requires none? Case closed.

A banana does possess many merits. It’s the perfect grab-and-go food. It’s easily portable, what with its own built-in protective case. It’s full of good-for-you potassium. And it’s easy to digest — for everyone from kids to grandparents to those with upset tummies.

I enjoy bananas, too — sliced atop Greek yogurt, with a sprinkling of crunchy granola. I also love them in banana bread, still warm right out of the oven. So when I spied this banana bread recipe from Oakland’s Bakesale Betty, I knew I had to try it.

I’ve yet to have the pleasure of visiting the Oakland shop, where the fried chicken sandwiches and strawberry shortcakes are legendary. Because the place has such a following already, I had high hopes for this banana bread by owner-baker Alison Barakat, an Aussie transplant who used to work at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Trust me, it didn’t disappoint.

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