About a dozen years ago, I wrote a silly little piece about my propensity for peanut butter. Since then, I’ve written more than 6oo essays, many of which I’m fairly proud, but I constantly hear about that column from people all these years later.
So at the risk of reinvigorating those who like to call me “the peanut butter guy,” I’m about to write about the subject one more time.
The first column came about after I’d had a breakfast conversation with a woman who was serving with me on a long-range planning committee for Wayland’s sesquicentennial celebration, which was to be held in 2005. I had dressed a couple of waffles in peanut butter and hot maple syrup. It was a gooey, sticky, delicious mess, and she was astonished! But she said she was a peanut butter nut, too, so she tried it and liked it.
So we began to talk about what we liked with peanut butter, and for a self-declared peanut butter nut, she was remarkably uninitiated in the art of peanut butter delights. I told her about some of my favorite concoctions.
For your edification, here’s a partial list: First of all, there’s the old reliable PBJ, which can be made with grape, cherry, strawberry, blackberry, apple butter, peach, orange marmalade and, my favorite, raspberry. All of these are wonderful on toast, but it’s not essential that the bread be toasted. And the bread can be whole wheat, cracked wheat, rye, pumpernickel, French, Italian, English muffin, sourdough, whatever, just not plain white. No Wonder Bread for me!
I also like salt, cinnamon sugar, honey, maple syrup, bananas, imitation bacon bits, chocolate chips, dill pickles, celery, apple slices, raisins, Craisins, cherry pie filling and shredded coconut. Not all at once, of course, but several of them are good in combination (like chocolate chips and bananas!).
I like peanut butter on Oreos, sweet rolls, saltines, graham crackers and Hershey bars. I like grilled peanut butter sandwiches. (I read once that Elvis Presley’s favorite food was a peanut butter and banana sandwich dipped in French toast batter, fried, sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar, and covered with syrup.)
I love peanut butter sandwiches with tomato juice, orange juice, apple juice, cranberry juice, Diet Pepsi or Diet Mountain Dew, with a bowl of chili, canned peaches, pears, fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges and applesauce. So, anyway, you get the idea, right?
I seldom go through a whole day with no peanut butter, and my appreciation for the invention of George Washington Carver has never waned. But a few years ago I was introduced to a new use of peanut butter by our grandson Trevor, who was about 7 at the time. We spent a couple of weeks with Trevor and his parents and his sister, Zoë, sight-seeing in Yosemite and Grand Tetons National Parks, and one day at breakfast, Trevor put a big gob of PB in his cereal bowl. Then he’d scoop a little of the PB with every spoonful of his Grape Nuts Flakes.
Interesting! I tried it then and there and liked it. I’ve been doing it ever since whenever I have cereal for breakfast.
I’ve gone one step farther, though. I’ve experimented using a variety of fruits and preserves along with the PB in my cereal. One of my favorites is fresh grapes, an idea I stole from my friend Jim K a few years ago. Try it. You’ll like it.
I know I’m not alone in my like-affair with this peanutty dream food. I’ve read all of Janet Evanovich’s novels. Her protagonist, the feisty bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, eats PB sandwiches. So does Sue Grafton’s detective, Kinsey Milhone. Her favorite is PB and olives — also one of my favorites. Our early morning talk show host, “Uncle Bill,” confesses that he has a PBJ sandwich for lunch every day. One of our hiking buddies is a confirmed PB lover, too.
I had a student once whose PB addiction took a different form. She’d spread the PB on a slice of toast and then spread a layer of butter over the PB. Then she’d turn the toast upside down. She claimed that she could get a much better appreciation for the flavors of the PB and the butter that way because they were touching her taste buds before the bread did. Interesting!
So, OK, now that I’ve re-opened the subject, I suppose people will stop calling me the “word person” and I’ll once again become “peanut butter guy.”
So be it!
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