peanut butter and bananas

so here i sit, pilfering internet from some unsuspecting neighbor, and having just finished a banana with peanut butter, i feel the need to blog, as i do. after an awesomely long conversation with stef in which we talked about little or nothing at all, i've rekindled my love of peanut butter. we discussed its various uses: peanut butter and hot chocolate mix, peanut butter and chocolate chips, peanut butter and bananas, peanut butter on a spoon, peanut butter in ice cream, peanut butter on apples...you get the idea. peanut butter is the magical food!

now, speaking of foods, i enjoyed a lovely hour or so this afternoon flipping through one of my grandma's cookbooks. i sat at my kitchen table, drank a cup of coffee and watched the rain fall against the window as i flipped through looking for recipes i'd like to try. now, the remarkable thing about the cook book is what a time capsule it is! these recipes were all contributed and compiled into a book by church members over 40 years ago. there are several observations i would like to share:

first, probably 90% of the dessert recipes included either jello or pineapple. a "treasured treat" included BOTH jello and pineapple, as well as CELERY and ICE CREAM. WTF?!?!?!?

second, all brand name things were written like they were actual products. for instance, "jello." today, we'd have to write "Jell-o" to be a little more on the politically correct side, whereas back in the day, people just wrote "jello," "tang," "nestle," "koolaid," etc. and here's with the time capsule: there were ONLY these brands to represent these products! they weren't brands back then, they were actually products!

thirdly, "vegetable" doesn't mean "vegetarian." i was stoked to discover three vegetable soup recipes until i looked at the first ingredient: "SOUP BONE." when i hear "vegetable," i translate "vegetarian." not so back in the day. there wasn't vegetarian back then...only things that were primarily vegetable, and with no meat chunks.

fourthly, translations! "oleo" is margarine. "bubble up"....i have no idea what that is. cans of turkey meat...what? frozen lemon juice instead of frozen lemonade...also in 6 oz cans! how different to our over-sized world!

fifthly, GROUND BEEF. HAMBURGER. as i flipped through the casseroles section, hamburger or ground beef were in nearly EVERY RECIPE. haha...and speaking of horrid meats, the recipe for pigs in a blanket: slice 2/3 of the way through weiners, stuff with cheese, wrap with bacon, then bake for 10 minutes. place on buttered and toasted buns. and another HORRID heart attack waiting to happen: spamwitches: spam, cream of mushroom soup, velveeta and onion ground together and fried in fat. serve patties on buttered hamburger buns. EWEWEWEWEWEW!!!!

i love looking through these recipes and thinking about what my grandma's life was like 50 years ago. wow, 50 years ago, she was 34! what will be outdated when i'm 34? nowadays, we're all about our wheat flour and edamame beans...what will be what's up in 50 years? we'll have lasers to clean our bathtubs, stef and i decided.