Hello, reader. How are you today? I’ve been using peanut butter in inappropriate ways lately. Is that worth a blog post in itself? Let’s figure that out–together. High five seems appropriate here, in a cartoon way.
thick
What do you think of peanut butter? I liked it from childhood, but found it a bit thick and cloying. I could enjoy peanut butter cookies for sure. It was nice in a reese’s cup sort of way.
Maybe a little too nice. I found it more charming than I might prefer. I found it rich, decadent, and comforting–yes.
Mostly my relationship to food is good. But there’s a little shadow of an eating disorder, I must admit. Some foods I just avoid, such as cookies. I get dysregulated–no amount of cookies is the right amount. Similarly, reese’s cups were a food left best alone.
recent times
Peanut butter can have a different consistency now, better than the Jif style nonsense I had as a kid. I never liked pb and jelly sandwiches–in fact, I hated them. Separate is fine–together, just no. But I don’t eat bread these days anyway. All sandwiches are lost to me.
In recent times, I’ve used peanut butter when I needed tahini and didn’t have any. Tahini is ground sesame seeds, common in making hummus and baba ganoush. I love tahini in beans for a creamy, fatty deliciousness. It’s been my condiment of choice for a long time.
pea soup
I made some pea soup for those people who had a new baby. Pea soup and rice with zucchini was the second meal I made for them. I took a bowl for myself, and it was good despite being very plain.
But it needed some fat. I added peanut butter, knowing this was perhaps the Wrong thing to do.
I showed Ming the mess I had created. “Legume on legume crime,” I said. Yes, that’s a lot of pepper.
You know peas and peanut butter are both legumes. Maybe it was a family reunion.
That went very well. I liked the peanut butter in the pea soup.
dal
So then I got overly confident and a few days later, put peanut butter in some black lentils. Wow, that was weirder. I love black lentils, and still, the house was out of tahini.
Maybe I put too much. That move I would not recommend.
It was edible, but it was too weird. Maybe more spices would have helped like more spicy red stuff. (We used the last of the berbere from Las Vegas the other day. I thought I might cry.)
learn from my mistakes
What do you think, reader? Have you used peanut butter in inappropriate ways? Something about the substance itself seems funny, but I don’t know why.
You could learn from my mistakes. Or you could make your own. Your mouth may vary, and your nutritional needs. I would say, though–being creative with food is important, for great discoveries and small discoveries too.
