​   ​How many times have you thrown away bananas because they were very ripe, almost rotten? None? Well, this almost happened to me last Sunday, when I realized that I had forgotten two bananas in the fridge. They were dark brown, so I thought they were rotten. However, they were just very ripe and my flatmate suggested making banana bread out of them. I live with a gluten intolerant flatmate, so you can image how making banana bread for everyone in the flat can be a problem. So, I asked a friend of mine, who is into cooking healthy snacks, for advice and we decided to go on a journey to the Tesco Extra on Maryhill Road and check the Free From section. On the way there she told me about gram flour - flour made from ground chickpeas, which I’d never heard of before, and we decided to check if they have it at the store. I did my usual shopping and then went to the Free From section. The choice, between the three gluten free flours, was already familiar to me. However, my flatmate does not consume them for whatever reason.  I thought that since the gram flour is not made of wheat I might find it in the Free From section. However,  the gram flour was nowhere to be seen, and I thought that I was way too optimistic in my idea of making a gluten free banana bread. Then my friend came with a packet of gram flour in her hand, which she found at the World Food section, as it turned out this flour is very popular among the Asian countries. I read the ingredients and I wasn't surprised, when I did not see the statement “gluten free product” at the back. Apparently, Tesco doesn’t want to display all gluten free products in their Free From section. Anyway, we made our purchases and we headed home.
 I found this simple banana bread recipe online on a site called Simply Recipes.

    ​Passing every day on my way to and from university, I found myself spending most of my week on Byres Road. I've always liked the vibrancy of the street in the morning, the cars buzzing along, the people hurrying to catch the subway, the way that you can get lost in the crowd of students in a rush hour and suddenly bump into a friend you haven’t seen in a long time. Byres Road has it all! If you want to take a break from the busy street, you can simply hide in one of the many coffee shops or restaurants, or if you are like me you can bury yourself in the pile of books of the new Waterstones book shop or Oxfam or Hillhead Library or wherever you can find a pile of books on Byres Road. As much as I like the dynamics of the heart of the West End, I prefer the quiet places. That’s the reason why I love Byres Road - you can easily escape it by taking a stroll into one of the lanes, especially Ashton Lane and Cresswell Lane and enjoying the autumn colours slowly changing rainy Glasgow into a beautiful winter prelude, I tend to do that quite a lot.