Saturday, July 12, 2008

Peanut Butter Closes the Deal.


I think everyone who cooks - or eats, for that matter - has at least one particular ingredient that he or she can't resist in any form. Whether it pops up in a recipe or on a menu, something that gives you the gustatory equivalent of tunnel vision, like in the movie of "West Side Story" when Tony and Maria spot each other across the dance floor and everybody else becomes all blurry and they start playing that song "Maria." For me, I am embarrassed to report, peanut butter falls into that category. Surely this is to some extent because of repetitive childhood brainwashing - "here, have a peanut-butter sandwich" - but I've been an adult making independent menu choices for some time (or so I like to tell myself) and still I keep coming back to peanut butter. Obviously, it represents comfort and familiarity, but I think it's also incredibly versatile, and as I've gotten older, its savory applications have revealed themselves - particularly in Asian cuisine. One of my darkest times food-wise was my college semester abroad in a country (Italy) where peanut butter could not be found in any grocery store. I finally located a jar of the all-natural variety that requires stirring, which was a poor substitute for my beloved Jif or Skippy. I finally located a jar of American-style PB in a Swiss grocery store and sat in a park in Lausanne eating it straight with a plastic spoon. Yum.
My latest recipe was a batch of triple-chocolate peanut butter sandwich cookies. The cookies themselves were flavored with Dutch-process cocoa powder and a bar of Ghirardelli 100% cacao chocolate, with wee chunks of milk chocolate mixed in, and a peanut-butter filling was squished between them. Sort of like the artisanal analog to a Reese's peanut-butter cup. My kids did not participate because I permitted a Power Rangers DVD to darken our doorstep yesterday, and they could not be torn away from the television to participate in the cookie project. The cookies themselves were a smashing success. The addition of confectioner's sugar gave the peanut butter that dryish, amost doughy consistency that the filling of Reese's has. After the Biryani Fiasco, I was ready for a good, solid, hit-it-out-of-the-park recipe, which this was.

2 comments:

Hannah L said...

Hey Steph,
I love your blog ... very interesting and it seems like your writing style is every bit as fresh as it was in high school. I think we have a lot of similar interests ... it makes me wish I hadn't moved to your home state and you hadn't moved to mine ....
8)

nightshade said...

you should have a contest among your readers entitled: 'things i would not eat with peanut butter'. I confess, the list would be short for me. axle grease perhaps, or parrot droppings.
this is a wonderful blog!