la Baker wears bananas

When I was a teenager, I happened upon an awesome movie about Josephine Baker.   The movie stared Lynn Whitfield and it was inspiring.  Here was this Black girl from the poor side of the city who used sheer talent and determination to get out of the ghetto and into the bright lights of the international stage.  La Baker was a pioneer for civil rights.  She refused to perform in clubs that were segregated.  She made the colored and white troops sit together before she would perform for them on a makeshift stage in the desert. She married a band leader and created a Rainbow Tribe of children adopted from multiple counties.  I tell you, I was mesmerized by her story.

But la Baker, who denounced her U.S. citizenship and adopted France as her home, was no domestic.  She never wore an apron in the movie.  She wore bananas...

And I'd like to believe that though I have no aspirations for a grandeous life of fame, I do have a kindred spirit in Miss Josephine.  I adore my kids.  I adore the diversity of people.  And I would rather wear bananas around my waist instead of an apron any day!

May 13, 2010: Chi, my dear sweet girl, doesn't understand this.  She pretends that the only thing Mama has destroyed in the kitchen were the accidentally Cajun-crisped burgers that created a fire drill. And she was convinced that simple meant surely Mom could make it. So, we went to the grocery store to buy the needed ingredients.

Note that the ingredients assume the would-be-baker has tools of the trade, namely a roller and a pastry brush.  I have neither.

I opened this box an hour after we got it from the freezer section in the grocery store.  I then promptly broke the first pastry puff sheet by trying to unfold it before waiting the designated 30 minutes to thaw... Wasn't the hour on the counter (but in the box) enough?

Shockingly, no smoke alarms were set off.  I did, however, use way more pastry puff than I was supposed to... because there was no way to save the rest. Everybody likes dough, right?  It was rather tasty despite the extra thickness.  I think I might have done okay... and now I'll go dance in my banana skirt.

;)