PeeBeeNoJay


Eat so-many grams-or-whatever of protein within a quarter-hour of rising, Dr. Oz once advised in my hearing. He suggested peanut butter. Always doing anything makes life a dull boy same as all work and no play, therefore I have no television or eating habits and don’t always do anything; but sometimes -- sometimes being more frequent than from time to time and certainly (there’s that most evil of all evil words) more frequent than now and then -- I have a teaspoon of peanut butter while waiting for the coffee machine to say -- well, whatever it says when it’s ready to brew. Sometimes it says “dregdrawer full” instead, or “fill water reservoir” but those aren’t the best omens for a perfect day, are they. 

Publix has good peanut butter for eccentrics, make that weirdos, like me who won’t buy peanut butter that has sugar and other strange objects in the ingredients, and I always read the ingredients before usually putting the jar back on the shelf. Publix natural peanut butter in the jar with the yellow top has only peanuts and salt, and it’s good. With the heart episode I quit buying pb with salt and started grinding it myself at Publix or FreshMarket, but that’s not the max, because I like it crunchy not smooth, and while the grinder yields grainy, it won’t do crunchy. So, I started shopping around. The farther in time you get from the OR the less alarming the warnings, so I will eat it with salt, but never with sugar et alia. Trader Joe has the widest selection of peanut butter. I have to shop either in Winston Salem or Tallahassee for theirs, but they have crunchy pb both with and without salt, both good. A couple times a year finds me in Target, and for anyone who hasn’t been, Target has a decent grocery section now, where we’ve bought those fox meat patties with mushroom. They are good, but nothing is as good for breakfast as a 97% lean beef patty cooked searing hot four seconds on each side. Well, oysters on toast is better. Back to point: even though it has salt, Target’s crunchy peanut butter is really choice to my taste, because the peanuts are not even semi-ground, somebody stands there and cuts each roasted peanut in half by hand, so you get really good crunchy peanut butter. It does have that salt though, which taste comes through loud and clear. 

Where is this going? Every time I eat peanut butter I think of the Sunday evenings growing up when my father made us a peanut butter and jelly (grape) sandwich and strawberry milkshake for supper. Just now, while the coffee maker was still saying “warming up” I had a heaping teaspoon of the peanut butter from Target, very tasty. Unplugged the WiFi booster, put on shoes RSF&PTL and went outside for Linda’s PCNH. That took a while looking round and finding that it wasn’t there, not even doing its usual trick of hiding in the shadows or under a rain-wet bush. Upon going back into the kitchen, which as anybody who’s been here knows, is in the middle of the house squnched between front and back living rooms and popping out on the west side like somebody’s big belly, coffee was ready to brew. Punching button and waiting for it to brew, I had a second heaping teaspoon of the peanut butter. I only buy peanut butter one jar at a time so I can check it out because I have an aversion to lousy pb, and the Target brand is nearly empty, but I will buy more of that next time I’m in Target, probably late afternoon exactly ten months from today while shopping for Linda’s Christmas present. Next to be opened is my jar of Trader Joe peanut butter, crunchy with no salt.

To a crunchy peanut butter fan, these things are important.

It has to be crunchy, most healthy if the label says no salt, just peanuts, and don’t overeat it because of the calories. Some brands will tell you the specific species of peanuts, but Bubba is not that eccentric. 

What brought on this heart business? The fact that growing up and lifelong, a favorite snack was a thick layer of crunchy peanut butter on one slice of whole wheat bread, the peanut butter on one side, a thick spread of butter on the other side, well salted, and folded to make a half-sandwich. Sometimes you first take a rolling pin to the slice of bread and roll it out flat to make it thin and large. What does that produce? A Bubba with heart disease, who learned his lesson and hasn’t done it in going on four years now. Bubba also no longer eats chicken liver sandwiches with mayonnaise and salted to taste.

Just the occasional heaping tsp of crunchy pb while waiting for coffee. Furosemide and black coffee and sit down to blog.

Uh oh, the lasix has struck with a vengeance, and while I’m up it’s time to check again for the newspaper. Oops, and plug the WiFi booster back in.