OK so I am a bit ashamed to admit it, but I don't think I would have recognized it as a banana flower!
Sorry to hear about the storm, we also have storm that were supposed to hit yesterday, but never came. That's the unpredictable aspect of nature (and life).
I wish people can return to their roots more often, using banana leaves again as plates, I am sure you can also cook with them by wrapping the food and put it on the hot charcoal?
Cheers!
That is what we do, we use banana leaves for preparing traditional grilled items in slow fire that is left at the end of burning of woods. In good old days, we had chullahs , we still have one and being used ( I posted about it in one other post where Mom loves cooking in that, and the food is pretty tasty).