What Jennifer really thinks about peanut butter
Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution opinion page features an essay from Jennifer.
Starting from scratch becomes a dying art
Jennifer Manske Fenske - For the Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
It seems we are too busy for peanut butter.
On our grocery store's shelves now is Smucker's "Uncrustables," a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich frozen without those pesky crusts. The product promises "unbelievable PB&Js, right from your grocer's freezer."
What's unbelievable is that it's come to this: Are we really too harried to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?
For generations, the hardy PB&J has been the staple of the wee child, the college student and the snacking parent looking for something easy and tasty. I remember biking home from the neighborhood pool as a child, anticipating a peanut butter sandwich stuffed with bananas. My mother, as I recall, made it for me. With her two hands.
Life is becoming too outsourced. I have a friend who is the lone holdout on her street who does not have a yard service. Truthfully, she would like to have her yard sculpted by someone else while she sits inside nursing a glass of iced tea.
Her husband, on the other hand, wants to mow the yard. So they work together, side by side, on the yard chores. They say they want their children to see them doing work instead of hiring someone else to do it.
The problem with convenience is that it's awfully convenient. As a teenager, I would wash the family cars alongside my father. I learned how to scrub a tire, remove gunk from the grill and gently buff paint until it glowed with pristine satisfaction.
When my husband and I moved to Atlanta, I continued this tradition until a friend told me about a car wash up the street from our workplace. For a ridiculously low price, my car returned, spiffed up in the fraction of the time it would take to haul out the hose, buckets and arsenal of cleaners.
But I draw the line with most prepared foods. There's something special about cutting up chicken and frying it up in a pan. Or shaping patties to throw on the grill. Our broiling Southern summers go down easier when Mom or Dad takes the time to slice a watermelon or whip up some lemonade.
My friends joke about my system, but here it is: I have a preprinted grocery list (by aisle) of all the things my family consumes. I open my weekly planner, figure out what nights I want to cook and then jot down the entrees I plan to prepare. I check off the ingredients needed on the preprinted list and then drop the list into the diaper bag for the next trip to the store. That's it.
And if I want to mix it up, say, and make something crazy like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? That's easy. I grab the bread. The peanut butter. The jelly. I think we can all take it from here.
Jennifer Manske Fenske is an Atlanta writer.