The Peanut Butter Jam Session (second reading)

Foreword: This was initially published to my WordPress account a few weeks ago. In the time since then, JIF has been slowly replenishing their stock across many grocery stores. I've also read the poem. It's all right. 

While the title of this blog is a reference to an indestructible journal by an explorer trapped in an invisible maze on a jungle planet, I am by no means an expert on lost media. In fact, the name is meant to be somewhat ironic as I’ve actually got a rather unpopular opinion when it comes to archiving or preserving our art and media, idealism versus pragmatism, that sort of thing. It was also made to coincide with a YouTube channel that would focus on obscure pieces of media that didn't fit into proper categories. Speaking of ephemera and miscellanea... 

There is a poem by cyberpunk writer William Gibson called Agrippa (A Book of the Dead). It's not exclusively a work of literature as much as a kind of small scale performance piece. It exists in a few different forms, but all with the same gimmick, that it can only be read a few times before it eventually fades, leaving the reader with an impression of the poem rather than anything that can be directly referenced. What’s interesting about this is that when submitted to the Library of Congress, two copies of the book were submitted, one opened and one unopened. The opened version has long since faded and the unopened version remains as it is, putting the work in an odd quasi-quantum state of both read and unread. 

Speaking of pretentious existentialism, let's talk about Metal Gear Solid 2 for the Playstation 2. 

I haven’t played the game in almost 20 years. It’s one of the last marathon gaming sessions I ever engaged in before I got a rude awakening about managing my time. It wasn’t cutting into my college work by any means, but it put things in perspective. I started what was supposed to be a quick session in the early evening before bed, my expectation being that I would get stuck at a difficult boss or puzzle or something like that and would pick up where I left off the next night or likely later. I ended up beating the game. It was only when I stood up to strike an obligatory pose of triumph that I realized it was nearly morning and I had a class in a few hours. 

Speaking of rabbit holes, I went back shortly after beating the game and discovered a text file. When I say "text file" I'm not talking about a document that you access by putting the game disc in a DVD-ROM drive. That would be too obvious. I'm talking about a text log you access in the game's menu and you have to use the controller to turn the pages, which number something like 129. I read it, and like Agrippa, I've been left with an impression of the work. It's about an investigative journalist looking for a secret base in the arctic. At one point, he takes out a flask and explains that the liquor inside has been mixed with peanut butter. He goes off on this tangent about how much he hated peanut butter growing up, and actually still hates it. Back in his youth, in an effort to make himself like peanut butter, he gorged on it until he couldn't stand it. As a result, he now has to have it in everything, including his liquor. I thought of this passage a few days ago while grocery shopping. 

JIF is currently going through a devastating recall of the majority of their products thanks to a potential salmonella contamination. It’s estimated to have cost them millions of dollars and store shelves have been empty for weeks by this point. I wouldn't have even noticed or been at all bothered by it were it not for JIF being the only company that makes a peanut butter fortified with Omega 3. When you're a vegetarian, some nutrients' sources require you to get a little more creative, or at least flexible. 

Never Knew It Was That Bad

I tend to go on these cookie-baking benders around this time of year. It goes back to this really crummy place I lived in for far too long where the best way to keep it any reasonable temperature in the winter was to use the oven as often as possible. Strangely, it was very efficient, surprisingly cost-effective, and you got cookies out of the deal. 

This year, I'm going to be doing something a little special. My roommate's nephew has a little girl with a peanut allergy. In fact, I think it's nuts in general. I'm not sure how severe it is in terms of triggering it, but given that the reaction is severe enough to warrant the use of an epipen, the matter's academic. You don't take chances, is the point. 

When my roommate was babysitting her once, she mentioned their having soynut butter in the house. I'd always seen jars of the stuff when I go grocery shopping, and I decided to pick a jar up to see what it was like. For starters, it' kind of ridiculous how expensive this stuff is. Then again, when I get peanut butter, I tend to go for the pricey stuff anyways, quality vs. quantity and all that. As for the soynut butter, I had it with some apples, and it was really good, very distinct, but ultimately as satisfying as peanut butter. 

I thought back on my little venture a few days ago when making some sugar cookies. I'd made peanut butter cookies a few times before, and it hardly seemed unreasonable to substitute the key ingredient. So, the little sweetheart is going to be getting soynut butter cookies as a present: 

I'm not sure how well this will work out, but it's a chance I'm more than willing to take. It should be fine. The only thing hiccup in the plan thus far is that, as cookies go, the flavor may be a bit bland. That's because of a rather startling revelation I got today when getting ingredients. As far as I know, there's only one brand of soynut butter, so that was the easy part. I had coupons for Market Pantry flour and sugar, so there was that choice. Finally, I went to get some white chocolate morsels. I figured that since the flour and sugar were a bit on the cheap side (they don't really need to be otherwise), I'd make up for it by pulling out all the stops when it came to the chips. I found a bag of Ghiardelli "gourmet" morsels and thought, "Aw, Hell yeah!" 

Then I read the back of the bag. 

Peanut/Tree nut warning. 

Okay, peanuts, chocolate, two great tastes that taste great--yeah, true, but that doesn't mean they're joined at the damned hip. After standing dumbfounded in the aisle for what felt like an hour, I thought, "Well, it's Ghiardelli, they're probably using exotic ingredients and/or are too niche to care about nut allergies." I figured I'd have better luck with Toll House; they're more well-known and would probably be the most concerned with something like that. 

Another nut warning. 

Granted, this was a little less ambiguous than the one for Ghiardelli by specifying that these morsels were made on equipment used to process peanuts, but almost anyone with a nut allergy will tell you that's a hair barely worth splitting. Feeling very defeated, I put the Toll House morsels back, rummaged through a few other varieties like milk chocolate or mint to no avail, and finally picked up a generic-branded bag of white chocolate morsels. 

There was no nut warning. 

At first, I think, "Score!" but let's put this in perspective. Ghiardelli and Toll House apparently cannot make any sort of chocolate chip without getting peanuts into the mix somehow, so what are these store brands doing different? Also, if you know anything about how branding works, the only difference between a big name and a no name is often quality control. What doesn't make the cut for the big guys is savings for the little guys to pass on to the less discerning customer. In other words, even if they don't come from the same place (another common occurrence in branding), you still get what you pay for, and if paying more can't even afford the peace of mind that a little girl's throat will not close up from eating your product, again, it's not a risk worth taking. Maybe I'm missing something, maybe I'm overthinking this, but should it really be this hard to keep the damn nuts out of our other food products? 

In any case, I just hope they turn out well, and that she ends up liking them.