A Wien Wien Situation

My dad and I share an amazingly abiding affection for alliteration, and a complete intolerance to extreme heat. It breaks us down, nucleus by nucleus, disorienting us like whisker-less cats. He visited me the first summer I lived in New Orleans, and I recall watching him melt like a Dali clock as we sat at an outdoor bar. His glasses fogged up, just before sliding down his face. It was really quite something. And they took a while to do it, too. It was a very dramatic few minutes.

I have the additional genetic jackpot of turning an alarming “emergency exit” red when overheated as well. It’s my body’s defense mechanism, much like a lizard that greens itself to match the leaf upon which it sits in order to avoid certain death.  I am the warning sign for everyone else. One look at my unsmiling, candy apple face, and the message to my species is clear: IT IS TOO FREAKING HOT HERE. TURN AROUND AND GO BACK, LIKE I WISH I HAD.

As the temp goes up, my activity level (which is already negligible) and sense of humor go down. Way. Way. Down. I stop talking. I move slowly. I drop things and refuse, REFUSE, to pick them up.

My insolent keys will learn their lesson after spending a night on the floor directly beneath the key hook.

Once again Los Angeles, specifically the Valley, has been treated to an August meltdown. My pajamas are in the freezer, my body lotion is in the fridge. When Titanic was on the other night, the infamous “Iceberg Straight Ahead!” moment caused me to think: I wish. And that’s not great, you guys.

When it gets this hot in LA (again), we all have our own ways of coping with it. I have found that setting my car radio to an easy listening radio station with a name that is purposely misspelled to accommodate the call letters, is quite soothing. It’s a saunic 101 degrees-but I get in my car and vengefully crank the AC to MAX, with all the vents open and pointed directly at me like a never-to-be-seen magazine cover shoot. I sit there for a minute recovering from the 90 Rango seconds it took me to get from my apartment to my car. I turn on my radio and am thoroughly unbothered by the Sinead O’Connor/Bryan Adams/Smokey Robinson lineup that follows. And that is exactly what I need right now: to be unbothered. Don’t ruffle my feathers today.  And since he knows what’s good for him, Christopher Cross never does.

Times like these call for simplicity. These are simply not the days for Beef Wellington and Baked Alaska, forks and knives. I don’t want to think. In fact, I can’t. I’ve put my cerebral cortex in the freezer for safety.

Days this hot need something reliably satisfying, something you can eat with one hand, and in a few bites. Something tried and truly delicious. Something that enters your life fully assembled, unlike absolutely anything you will ever buy at Ikea, including plants somehow. I don’t know how they do it.

The dog days of hot summer call for hot dogs.

Peanut Butter Werewolf

When I was a kid, I sometimes would sleepwalk and eat straight-up butter from the fridge.

Now that I’ve said it, I don’t even know if my parents know that. I remember hoping that no one would notice the little nibble marks down the sunny yellow stick of weaponized dairy, and I think I got my wish.

Lately, I have been “sleepwalking” again. I find myself now eating generous spoonfuls of peanut butter in the middle of the night. I wake up in the morning with a niacin hangover to find at least one, sometimes more, used peanut butter spoons on my nightstand.

So clearly I’ve been spooning.

This is bad for a few reasons. One, I hate ingesting calories I can’t remember. I pride myself in having a razor sharp food memory as I explained in my first ever blog post well over a year ago. (http://thefoodessfiles.blogspot.com/2010_06_06_archive.html).
These sordid secret meetings between myself and assorted nut butters rob me of that.

Sometimes it’s almond butter, so basically just a nice responsible after-hours dose of Vitamin E. A midnight medicine, really. Sometimes, I hoover the peanut butter filling out of a white chocolate Reese’s peanut butter egg left over from Easter, crouching beside that oddly shaped cabinet in the kitchen that I specifically put them in so that I couldn't ever get to them. That plan falls through on a regular basis. Why am I hoovering? Because I do not care for white chocolate. And I do not wish to discuss it.

A bite I cannot recall? THAT is my definition of an empty calorie.

Secondly, it makes it hard for me to inventory my nut-based product stock. That jar of Valencia Peanut Butter with Flaxseeds from Trader Joe’s might be there tomorrow. But it might not.

Among my greatest fears are:

1.)    That the sample lady at the Cinnabon in the mall will wise-up and realize that I don’t have “a friend in Sunglass Hut,” who wants one too.

2.)    That I will run out of shampoo. It happened once to someone I knew.

3.)    That I will develop a nut allergy. Even now, just writing that my heart seized up a little.

Earlier this year, I was given a giftcard to Amazon. I used it to purchase 90 portable packets of Justin’s honey peanut butter, and a lipstick that perfectly matches a bright pink terrycloth one piece strapless romper my grandmother gave me. It’s basically a towel that you wear like an outfit, and I Caps Lock love it. I rarely wear them together, though. That would be crossing a line. Plus, according to her, these Florida-purchased garments used to have two embroidered flower decals, but now only have one, “because of the economy.” So add one more casualty to the list. Bear Stearns will never know the ripples... 

When the peanut butter came in the mail, I realized that it was essentially the kind of box an actual store would order to put on their shelves, in order to sell. It was that much peanut butter. The little sleeve on top said “Tear Along Perforations Before Shelving. Remove Before Display.” Which I did. Before I displayed it to myself. So I kiiiiiiind of have a tiny Whole Foods peanut butter display case in my cupboard. I’m hoping that’s cool, instead of weird. Fingers crossed.

When I found out there was a peanut butter-based truck, my gaze narrowed, my jaw set, and I began to hatch a plan. I would have this peanut butter truck for my own. I would love it, and take care of it, and pet it, and squeeze it a little too hard, Of Mice and Men-style. And finally, on a Friday night around the corner from my house, the plan came to salty fruition.

This time, instead of spoonfuls of peanut butter eaten in pajamas by the light of the moon like a werewolf activated by saturated fat, I put on real-people clothes. I left my apartment. I walked around the corner, and into a different universe. A universe in which one may order, and eat, a PeanutButterBananaBaconHoney Sandwich.

Let's take a look at this cast...

Peanut Butter: Perfectly salty, indisputably nutty, all-natural, and smooth with the ladies.
Banana: Soft and creamy, wants everyone to get along.
Bacon: AKA Moneybags. Rich and crispy counterpoint.
Honey: The poet of the bunch. Has a way of sweettalking.

It's CLUE, in sandwich form.

Exactly. PeanutButterBananaBaconHoney Sandwich. Now, the real name of this dish is the Thank You Very Much, but I like using my own ingredient-based nickname. It allows me to really toy with the affections of the Space Bar. I will say that I did not actually eat this sandwich. I drank it. I stood on the sidewalk amongst friends and countrymen, and drank this (expletive)-ing amazing sandwich. There was no jaw activity. There were no teeth involved. It was so delicious, I simply could not be bothered to chew.

We stood there, my compatriots and I, alternating between speechless and this-is-so-delicious moaning, until the Thai Airways chicken wings showed up.

Technically, these are chicken wings in a peanut butter hot sauce. But unofficially, they are: “The best chicken wings I have ever had.”

Is what he said. Four seconds after this picture was taken.

Now, a word on Kharyn. Kharyn is a bad-ass PB ninja, who has taken something we have all had at one time or another, and has made it into something absolutely transcendent. When you visit the Pnut Butter Bar truck you will eat THE BEST peanut butter sandwich you have ever had, you will have THE BEST chicken wings you have ever had, and you will leave evidence of both on the sidewalk. You will regret leaving any behind, and wonder if anyone will care that you suck on the paper the fries came on. Heads up: they won’t. They are doing it too.

Oh, yes. Fries too. With a peanut butter ketchup you have to taste to understand the brilliance of. The Pnut Butter Bar ninja grinds her own peanut butter by the way. But that’s just the ice cream sundae on top of the ice cream sundae. And get the Walk The Pig hot dog too, because I’ve discovered that mustard is in love with peanut butter, and being around them makes me happy.

So, go. Find this home-grown grinder of greatness. Drink a sandwich outside a bar with friends. This stand-in-a-circle-no-talking-just-slurping meal will put your fanciest tablecloth dinner memories to shame. Remember that all of your pictures will come out fuzzy, because the air is full of satisfaction and contentment. And try to take them flip-book style.

THE END