Peanut Butter and Friends

When I was a little girl going to school at the English School Shuwaikh, there was a wonderful book that I used to read - I think it was a regular text that we all had access to - and it contained short biographies of many different kinds of people through history. Two really stuck out for me: one was Mozart, and the other was George Washing Carver. His story - born into slavery, fighting for an education and then inventing and developing so many wonderful ideas in his work as an agricultural chemist - had a lasting impact on me, and - trust me - not much does. Part of that work he did was in peanuts. When we came to Canada, one of our discoveries was peanut butter. How exotic it seemed! And then there were peanut butter and jam (could never say jelly for jam) sandwiches. We rarely had those as my mother had come up with her own creation: peanut butter and cucumber sandwiches. The North American and the English combined. It's a good combination. The crisp coolness of the cucumber helps to cut the stickiness of the peanut butter and it is still one of my favourites. I recommend it. What I had never tried until this morning was the much-extolled peanut butter and banana sandwich. I couldn't imagine it. But this morning, faced with not much time, a ripe banana and an opened jar of peanut butter (unsweetened, 100% peanuts), I went for it. What a sensation! As I told Dr. M. later, it's like eating cake! But I think it's a bit too sweet for me, especially in the morning. Since I have given up most sugar and am now a dark chocolate consumer, a lot of things have become a bit too sweet. Amazing how the taste buds change.