Who the heck is Yancey?: cookies & banana bread

For FOUR years, I've lived with a pretty awesome roommate. His name is Yancey. We met working at Blockbuster. During training, he saved my butt cause he knew things about video games and movies. I needed a roommate after having disagreeable roommates who liked cats and dogs. I don't like animals and they, the people, were too demanding.

Now Yancey is a keeper. He's very easy to get along with, funny, and smart. We have lots in common.

• We both come from ethnically diverse places where we were just one in a million - he's from El Paso and I'm from Orange County (the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam).
  
• Neither of us drink coffee though I dabbled in it for awhile.
  
• For awhile, neither of us drank cow milk cause it doesn't last too long... that is until he decided soy milk gives him boobs.
• We don't like animals.

I swear there's more. I just can't think of it now.

Anyways, this post is about baking and my roommate. There's not much to say there. He doesn't eat a lot of sweets. He likes oily foods that stink up the house, particularly burgers and fajitas when he cooks. When he does eat my sweets, it means it's good. So far he loved my Cupcakes for Cures mooncake cupcake, Dorie Greenspan's tiramisu cake, and Baked's whiteout cake.

He's pretty simple: tres leches cakes, blondies, banana bread, and white chocolate macadamia nut cookies.

• I've made a ton of tres leches recipes and found one great one. It involves a box mix.
• He loves blondies, but I'm not a fan. They're too sweet. I don't like brownies either. Too much chocolate. So, I can't really tell you of a good recipe.
  
• We both love banana bread, even a green curry banana bread I made.
• I have never ever made Yancey macadamia nut cookies...

Today, I wanted to bake and I asked Yancey what he preferred. Hm, macadamia nut cupcakes sound good, but I can't take them to work. White chocolate macadamia nut cookies work better since they keep longer. I made him a batch of 7 and put the dough in the freezer. He's already eaten 2.


He chose banana bread though he wanted nuts in them, preferably macadamia nuts so I decided to make banana bread muffins. I even let him choose the liners. Pink please. I ran out of foil pink, but got some not so cool Valentine's Day liners that I need to get rid of.

My favorite banana bread recipe comes from Orangette. I've made a ton of banana bread and nothing has surpassed it. Tonight, I made a superb one that definitely rivals Orangette's: Sugarbomb Bakery's Ian & Alison's Banana Bread. It's moist and vegan too! Yum. I had one with Dagoba chocolate and made some others with dried blueberries.


Maybe it's my tastes nowadays, but I love vegan or vegetarian food. I mean, I tasted tons of cupcakes over at Cupcakes for Cures, but ended up loving the two vegan cupcakes?! How is that possible?

Back to Yancey, he's off in the cold, rainy night returning movies. He still works at Blockbuster part time. I sent him off with banana bread muffins in a tacky Valentine's Day carrier to share with his coworkers.

Before I forget, one last thing: we're moving together! :) Start taking bets, how long do you think we will live together?