Bachelor Food, May 2011: Peanut Butter and Jelly

Due to the popularity of the other monthly feature (grammar tips) and the even greater popularity of the cooking blog genre, here's where we are.  A monthly cooking installment from someone who doesn't know how to cook anything.


How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Just kidding.  Sort of.  I know that if you can operate a computer/smartphone and read this blog, you can prepare a PB&J.  But, because I've made many more of them than you, I've learned some tricks of the trade that you may want to know.  And so, this won't be a how-to, but a revelation of 2 important tricks in the peanut butter and jelly process.

1. Squeeze jelly

This isn't a joke.  Tip #1 is to go buy jelly that comes in a squeeze dispenser instead of a jar.  Here's why:

1. When you use jarred jelly, you face a strange knife dilemma.  Can you use the same knife for your PB and your J?  If so, how much work will it take to thoroughly remove the extra peanut butter from the knife?  If not, can you sleep at night knowing you dirtied two knives for the simplest food known to single man?
2. Jelly is unwieldy!!  It's easy enough to spread with a knife, but the transfer from jar to bread is nearly impossible.
3. Plastic containers are just safer and less risky than heavy glass jars.

I almost can't overstate this.  Squeeze jelly.

#2. The bread flip

It took me years to discipline myself enough to regularly execute this crucial step.  Let me explain:

First, notice that a piece of bread is rarely actually symmetric, as seen in this near photograph quality rendering:

Now, the typical guy move is to grap two consecutive pieces of bread together in one movement, and just slide one next to the other (without flipping one of the pieces), as so:

The problem, as you've probably already deduced, with this initital set-up is that now, when the spreads are added...

...there is no way to combine the pieces perfectly.  Thus there will be overhang on both sides of the sandwich, threatening to deposit either of the spreads onto fingers, shirts, or beards.  Had a flip of one piece of bread been orchestrated right out of the bag, you can see that we would have ideal sandwich conditions:

Just put those bad boys together!  Mmmmmm!!


Contribute, even though you're 29 culinary levels ahead of me

What 4th-grade-friendly food tips would you like to see?  Cereal?  Bagels?

Do you have any thoughts on the two genius tips above?

Jon