Last week Sarah and I watched “Julie and Julia”, which, for obvious reasons, I’ve been wanting to see for some time now (the ‘obvious reason’, of course, being my undying appreciation for Stanley Tucci). More than anything, it made me feel like a bit of a slacker. I mean, the protagonist worked her way through 500-odd recipes in a year. I thought I’d passed my one-year anniversary of this project, but realize it’s actually not for another 2 months. Still, though, it’s put me in a mind to reflect a bit on all I’ve learned these past 10 months.
But not too much. I mean, waxing nostalgic on a cooking blog is like the sitcom clip show, and I can’t be rolling like that. Clip shows make me want to throw things. And who cares if it takes me 4 years to make it through this book?
So I’m compensating (and kickstarting myself since losing momentum with this service piece thing) by cherry-picking some simpler recipes this season. This one might be one of the most straightforward recipes in the book. And Sarah loves PB+J, so it was an appropriate valentine’s day project!
This recipe is so simple I felt like it had little to offer in the way of surprises. Start with a seedless grape on a vine, dip it in some homemade peanut butter, wrap it in paper-thin bread, toast it, dust it with a bit of peanut powder. The cleverness here is obviously in the presentation, but the flavors are 100% recognizable and understandable. The surprise, though, was eating it fresh from the toaster. I’m not sure if this is how the book intends it to be eaten, but it was awesome. The grape goes a bit gooey from being under a broiler for 10 minutes or so, and the bread gets crisp, so it’s sort of like your mom toasted your PB+J sandwich.
Which I think might be exactly something I should try for my kids someday.
