None is Best

I’ve been taking flak for most of my life because I don’t like the taste of peanut butter cookies. Not only don’t I like the taste of those cookies, I don’t like the taste of anything at all that is baked or cooked with peanut butter. I have had the misfortune of eating some kind of Thai dish that was made with peanut butter. The people I was with assured me that I would loved this particular item on the menu. I should have known I wouldn’t like it; I have a long standing rule about ordering anything that I can’t spell or pronounce. You should know what it is that you are ordering, shouldn’t you?

Peanut butter is just not the kind of thing that one should use in baking. Well, this one will never use it in baking anyways, and I will encourage people not to make peanut butter cookies with my dying breath. Normally, I am pretty lax when it comes to cookies. How can you go wrong? Flour, sugar, nuts (not peanuts), raisins, some eggs and bake for 12 minutes at 350° F. You can go wrong if you use peanut butter!

I think the reason I get a hard time about the peanut butter cookies from my loved ones is the fact that I just love to eat peanut butter. I could eat peanut butter sandwiches every day for the rest of my life, and for a goodly portion of my life up till this point, I have done just that. I like plain peanut butter sandwiches, sandwiches made with any kind of jam and peanut butter, sandwiches with slices of banana and a thick layer of peanut butter and open face bread with peanut butter and raisins sprinkled on top. Toast with peanut butter is heavenly just out of the toaster the way it gets all shiny and melty with the heat. Cold peanut butter and toast is pretty good too. You get the idea, sandwiches are okay but cookies are evil.

 

A couple of years ago, it came to my attention that grade school kids can no longer bring peanut butter sandwiches to school because there is a chance that some kids are allergic to peanuts. I can’t imagine eating a lunch in school and it not being a peanut butter and jam sandwich. The way I see it, those kids that are so allergic to peanuts should have to either be home schooled or spend their lives in ignorance. They could go into politics!

I was talking to my brother on the weekend and for one reason or another, the conversation got around to peanut butter cookies. He said that he was eating a peanut butter cookie while I was talking to him. I just sat in stunned silence staring at the phone wondering if my brother had suffered some kind of head trauma recently. I told him that I hated peanut butter cookies and was surprised that someone with his obviously superior genes could eat that shit. He agreed with me about peanut butter cookies and he felt the same way as I do, except that he picked one of these cookies up by mistake and it turned out that he actually liked it!

I didn’t know that Steve hated peanut butter cookies before Saturday morning, but it is comforting that I am not totally alone. I can understand eating a peanut butter cookie that has a very small amount of peanut butter in it. Maybe if the ingredients sat on the same shelf as a jar of peanut butter, or if you just waved a spoonful over the top of the mixing bowl.

Remember, when it comes to peanut butter cookies, not only is less, more, but none is best!