My fellow Americans will be able to relate to the familiar childhood comfort a PBJ sandwich on white bread with a glass of milk brings. As soon as I bite into one, I'm immediately brought back to the time when I had a pink plastic Mickey & Minnie lunchbox with a school-house scene on the front. That's when everyone else was into Lisa Frank and I was totally uncool but my mom wouldn't let me get a new lunchbox because mine was "perfectly fine" and besides, "why would you want to fit in? It's cool to be different" - not that I was bullied in elementary school or anything (and not that I'm still bitter about it today).
Sorry, I've digressed. It's hard to find good peanut butter in the UK. There's always something slightly off about it - it's either too salty, or not creamy enough, or just ... weird. I like good ol' Skippy peanut butter and strawberry or grape (which doesn't seem to exist in the UK either) jam on mine - with slightly more jam than peanut butter. See, everyone has their own secret "PBJ ratio". You gotta test out it a few times to get it right.
I like to have peanut butter jelly time at work. This consists of going downstairs to the Canteen in the morning and making myself a toasted sesame seed bagel slathered in peanut butter and jelly. I've felt the stares, I've heard the giggles. But then, one day, someone couldn't resist saying something to me: "What are you doing?" asked the man beside me in a rather thick but charming French accent (imagine this yourself, I'm not going to be offensive and do a phonetic interpretation here). "Excuse me?" I asked, confused. He pointed to my bagel. "What are you doing with ... that? What is that?" "It's peanut butter and jelly," I replied, proudly. "Oh!" he said, slightly amused. "I've never seen that before." "It's an American specialty," I assured him. "You're American? Yes? Really?" he said in disbelief. "Um, yeah ..." I said. "But ... but ... how could this be? Americans are so -" and then he puffed out his cheeks and widened his arms, as if to copy a puffed up balloon, "- and you are so ..." He put his hands closer together as if to illustrate a stick figure. "Um ... right ... well, I won't be if I keep eating these every morning! Ha ha! Ha!" I said as I inched away from him. "Oh well," he shrugged, in the way only a French person can, "Maybe I will try it myself sometime!" "Yes, do!" I encouraged. I was going to launch into my explanation of the PBJ ratio but I decided that was probably too much, too soon. You've got to ease your way into the PBJ love. Like a cold swimming pool.
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