Peanut Butter

Is it strange that as I waited for Dinobaby to fall asleep for the night, my recurrent thought was, "I can't wait to open the new jar of peanut butter!"?

Natural.  Organic.  Chunky.  Dark Roasted.

Lately I've been eating it by the spoonful and, so far as I know, I don't have the excuse of pregnancy for my newly developed food craving.  Peanut butter has always been my staple for blood sugar emergencies, which has made me have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it.  The smell of warm peanut butter makes me feel sick.  Have you ever closed the jar of peanut butter, licked the knife, and run it under hot water so it won't just sit in the sink getting petrified?  I hate the smell of warm, melting peanut butter.  On a sidenote, I once took a personality test that asked the question, "Do you lick knives?"  I suppose the fact that I do says something about my personality, but I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

My latest find, since I really have (sort of) been trying to test out the diet from Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition, is a brand of natural peanut butter from Whole Foods.  It's still not the kind that you grind for yourself right there in the store because I'm absolutely terrified and ignorant about the machines they have there.  "Oh, the poor dear!  She lost her finger in a peanut grinder accident."  I can just imagine too many things going wrong with that one.  So, I'm happily stuck with the peanut butter that comes in a jar.

I've always been a little averse to natural peanut butter, thanks in part to the brand my Nana used for her own blood sugar emergencies when I was a little girl.  I can still remember sitting in the backseat of my grandparents' car and being so excited to share a snack with her.  Tiny metal cans of pineapple juice and saltine crackers and natural peanut butter made into little sandwiches.  The crackers would turn to mush on contact with your tongue and the peanut butter was the perfect mortar to keep a chatty six year old quiet for a few minutes.  (Now that I think of it, that was pretty genius of them.)  I never loved the peanut butter, but I was so excited to see those crackers as my Nana snuck them out from inside her purse.  I loved sharing them with her.  To this day, I get a little emotional if I buy myself a pack of those little cans of pineapple juice.

I've had a change of heart in the peanut butter department.  I crave it by itself, unadulterated by toast or jelly, in a heaping tablespoon.  Serve it with a glass of cold milk and, lately, it's a sure thing to make me a happy camper.