The joy of peanut butter

It's funny how after being away from your home country for awhile, you forget about little things you like about home, until suddenly, these little things start to pop into you life somehow. This happened to me with peanut butter. At home, I eat peanut butter pretty regularly, I'd say. But I hadn't eaten it at all in South America. You just don't see it much. It's not impossible to find, but it is unreasonably expensive and not at all popular. So I was just living without peanut butter and never thought anything of it. Until one day, during a conversation about what counts as typical American food I thought of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I can't claim to know if pb&j would officially be considered American, but I can say it's definitely a classic among American children. And when I mentioned the combo here, my host family asked what peanut butter tasted like. They had never tried it. This kind of shocked me, I truly thought peanut butter was universal, or rather, I never thought that it wasn't. I proceeded to talk about all the different combination of things you can put peanut butter on (peanut butter and honey, peanut butter and bananas, peanut butter on apple slices, ants on a log, peanut butter ice cream, cookies, etc.) and then I started to crave it, bad. So I asked my mom to bring a jar with her so that I could make my family ants on a log, pb&j sandwiches and so on.

So last night we broke out the jar for the first time, and I would say it was a huge success. My host sister tried a peanut butter and banana sandwich (Elvis would have been proud) and my host mom tried the peanut butter and honey sandwich combo (a personal favorite). They both thought it was very delicious and soon we are going to buy some celery and raisins so I can make ants on a log (the combo they are most curious about, I admit, it does sound quite strange, and it has been many years since I've enjoyed the snack. But I maintain that it is delicious). Today my host sister brought a peanut butter and honey sandwich to school for a snack and shared it with her friends. I happened to run in to them right after they tried it, and the sandwich received mostly rave reviews. I felt happy I was able to spread the peanut butter love. When I go back to the states, I am going to buy one of those huge peanut butter cookies the size of my face.

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I just ate a Reese's peanut butter cup (another treat I hadn't enjoyed in ages) and I'm feeling pretty good. For pure enjoyment, here are a few silly pictures that have been taken since my parents have been here.

At Lago Ranco, just as this picture was being taken, a huge truck going by honked at me and that made me laugh.

I really love this picture.

Senior pic posing.

This tree is a friend of ours.

It was actually quite comfortable.