SINGING THE PRAISES OF CREAM...AND SLICED BANANAS

Cream is deemed the ultimate. It rises to the top...It represents the best of any crop...It enhances taste. It makes things better...It blends.

Cream even has endearing quality, i.e. the song lyrics:

"You're the cream in my coffee,
You're the salt in my stew
You will always be my necessity,
I'd be lost without you."

In fact, you can't say a bad thing about cream, with the exception of the nutritional notion that it makes you fat. And you know what? I am willing to give up most things in life for the betterment of my health, but not when it comes to cream. I absolutely insist of having cream (5 % is as low as I'm willing to go) in my coffee and on my cereal in the morning.

The combination of peaches and cream always has positive connotations too, as does anything with the addition of cream, like bananas for instance.

It is due to my mother's influence that, to this day, I like cream on fruit in general -- strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, apple and rhubarb sauces and of course the aforementioned peaches and bananas. Then there is cream on homemade puddings of all kinds -- jello, chocolate, vanilla, butterscotch, lemon, rice, tapioca, bread, you name it.

But back to singing the praises of a simple bowl of sliced bananas with cream and a sprinkling of sugar as a treat any time of the day or night, but primarily as a fall-back dessert after meals. Most household cupboards are stocked with bananas that have a short shelf life and what better way to use them up quickly and easily than as an inexpensive no-fuss-no-muss dessert with a few ounces of cream.

Bottom line: If you haven't tried sliced bananas and cream, you don't know what you're missing!

And, oh, I almost forgot...I always have a banana with breakfast too -- frequently sliced into my bowl of cereal and cream.

I would not leave home without having it!