“Peanut butter is the pâté of childhood.”
The day has little to commend it. It’s cold, windy and raw. The heat is not on steadily yet and is set for 64°, but on this chilly morning it started by itself before I even got out of bed. I was loathe to leave my warm covers, but Miss Gracie wanted out, and I figured a cup of hot coffee made going downstairs almost worthwhile. The feeders need filling so I’ll bundle up later, go out and make my birds happy. Yesterday a flicker dropped by and ate his weight in sunflower seeds.
Our house was small though I suspect four kids would have made even a bigger house seem small. In the kitchen, the stove was narrow, and the table and chairs barely had room against the wall, and you had to maneuver in and out sideways. I remember the back screen door was green. The fridge was next to the back door. We’d open it and stand there trying to decide what we wanted, and that drove my parents crazy. My father would yell we were letting all the cold air out. In the summer all that cold air felt good. My mother shopped once a week, usually on a Friday night after my father got home. By Tuesday, all the cookies were gone, except for the stuff we couldn’t touch, the stuff for school lunches. We’d complain there was nothing good to eat, but my mother was never sympathetic. We were the ones who ate it all. Oreos were our favorite cookies. My sisters used to open theirs, eat the middles then feed the cookie parts to the dog. I always ate the plain side first then slowly savored the frosting side. I still like Oreos.
Peanut butter is one of the best all time foods. We always thought of it as a snack food, not one for school lunches. We’d make a peanut butter and marshmallow or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My mother usually bought grape jelly which had a tendency to ooze out the sides of the bread, and you had to be quick to catch it before it fell. Sometimes we’d eat Saltines with peanut butter. They were a great snack for TV watching. I’m still a peanut butter fan.
My mother never bought much cheese when we were kids, and whatever she bought was always yellow. For years I thought cheese came only in yellow and was from a box. It was quite a surprise to find not only did cheese come in colors but it also came in flavors. I love all sorts of cheeses, except blue, and I have to admit I still use Velveeta. It makes the best Mexican cheese dip.
Tags: cold mornings, oreos, peanut butter, yellow cheese
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
October 16, 2010 at 11:37 am
It’s a bachelor weekend. My wife is in Shanghai and the kids have gone to East Lansing for homecoming. Maggie and I have been out cruising, doing chores and picking up food. I got home to find an e mail from Debbie Wilson.
At Dorking Grammar we sat alphabetically, so I sat in front of Debbie from the age of 11 until 18, child to young man. Debs was very smart and focused and I was neither. I spent many classes with my head turned around getting help ..without Debbie where would I have been ?
To this day she remembers how much I liked Spurs and idolized Martin Peters, and to this day I am thankful that she is my friend.
October 16, 2010 at 5:04 pm
My Dear Hedley,
Mostly I lost touch with my childhood friends, but I still have one, like your Debs, only I was the focused one. She claims she’d still be in grammar school without my help.
Gracie and I are off to the market to get something for dinner. She enjoys cruising too. When the weather gets cold, we’re always traveling companions.
Enjoy your bachelor weekend!
October 16, 2010 at 12:31 pm
It´s already freezing outside so it will be a cold night once again. I think it even might be colder than last night.
Our favorite cookie was and still is Ballerina. The top part is plain vanilla pastry and the bottom is chocolate and in between there is this hazelnut/chocolate cream. The top was the part that got eaten first 🙂
Cheese has always been the most popular thing on a sandwich in my family and we often had different sorts. I love to combine it with orange jelly or caviar (smoked cod roe with some salt added, not the russian kind 🙂 🙂 🙂 )But I have to admit that I never even had heard about grape jelly before I started reading american blogs 🙂
Have a great day now!
Christer.
October 16, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Christer,
My heat has been going on all day. It’s chilly here. I wouldn’t say cold after I saw the pictures on your blog.
That cookie sounds delicious. I love the taste of hazelnut.
Lately I have been eating fig compote with my cheese. It is a great combination especially with cheddar.
Stay warm!
October 16, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Ah HAH! I know now why I enjoy your company via this website…my two favorite things to eat. Peanut butter and cheese. Uh wait…that’s separately, of course!
My Mom used to get a charge out of our dog eating peanut butter. The stuff would stick to the roof of her mouth, poor thing, and she’d have to keep her mouth WIDE open while she tried to swallow it.
And I can still remember the times my Dad would buy a brick of bleu cheese. He and I would sit at the kitchen table and eat it on crackers for a snack. My mother could not stand the smell!
Funny what the human memory is. If you ever get down this way I will show you a great place for chocolate peanut butter ice cream…. 🙂
October 16, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Coleen,
I had to laugh at the description of your dog and peanut butter, I know exactly what you mean. My dog’s tongue would go a mile a minute as he tried to eat the peanut butter stuck in his mouth.
I would never be joining you and your father at that table. That is the one cheese i just don’t like even though I keep trying it. When I shop, I buy different cheeses if I can. I love trying new ones. Last summer Australian cheddar and a local goat cheese I found were the favorites.
My mouth is salivating at the thought of chocolate peanut butter ice cream. That’s a combination made in heaven.
October 16, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Peanut butter, banana and lettuce sandwiches (yes, all at the same time) were a favorite in my home. You could leave the lettuce out but I find that it helps alleviate that stick-to-the-roof-of-the-mouth thing that peanut butter, bananas and bread will do. Currently my favorite combo is Nutella and peanut butter sandwiches or Nutella and peanut butter on a wasa cracker.
I have lately developed a huge thing for cheeses of many varieties. Brie is a favorite as well as gouda and edam. Cheddar with apples is also good.
And Hydrox is still the cookie of choice but since it is no longer available, Orios will have to do. 🙂
October 16, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Hi Caryn,
I like peanut butter and bananas, especially on toast, but the lettuce throws me a bit. It seems to go with neither of the other two.
I haven’t had Nutella in a dog’s age so I’ll have to get a jar as I used to like it on crackers with PB.
My dad was a cheddar cheese on apple pie man, and he got me to try it. It was delicious. He also favored Hydrox.
I read where Keebler was planning to bring back Hydrox but was going to call them Keebler Droxies. I don’t know if that happened or not (Keebler bought out Sunshine which made Hydrox).
October 17, 2010 at 12:09 pm
I have a vague memory of Hydrox being changed to Drox or Droxies just before they disappeared. They had different flavors, too, at the end. Trying to keep up with Oreos.
The lettuce in the pbl sandwich is plain old iceberg that has no flavor of it’s own but does provide crispy crunchy texture and enough moisture so the other things don’t stick to the roof of your mouth. A bit like peanutbutter on apples, I guess. I got the idea from a classmate in 1st grade who had come from the Philippines. Apparently it was a big deal there.
October 16, 2010 at 4:45 pm
How true. Again, I never thought of cheese being only yellow but up until College it was. I can’t think of even knowing there were other choices out there through High School. You know, high schools too only served yellow cheese in slices and when they got stale they were hard on the side and we had to pull off the hard to get to the soft cheese. But still yellow. How good that you mentioned it. I’m going to make sure my grandies know more than one type of cheese. I will buy several to show them when they come over for a visit and dinner. Thanks Kat!
October 16, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Z&Me,
You’re right about high schools. They got their yellow cheese from the government so all the schools served it.
My mother later bought individually wrapped yellow and white cheese because that’s what my father liked. We were all on our own by then and had been introduced to a world of cheese and scoffed a bit when we visited and those cheeses were our only choices.
I love cheese and have it as my main meal many evenings.
October 16, 2010 at 10:10 pm
My grandparents would head home after a visit here with the car truck loaded with 5lb cans of peanut butter. In the 60s, our local peanut butter still retained its peanut oil, vice the new fangled veggie oil. And our local syrup was cane, not corn.
Cheers
October 17, 2010 at 7:45 am
Minicapt,
I can still buy pure peanut butter and sometimes it’s so thick I add peanut oil.
In Africa we bought it as groundnut paste which was a soup base-it too needed thinning.