And The Gods Are Good

I mean is this a gift from the gods or what?



My friend Carla was here two weeks ago to take a cruise from Roma and showed up at dinner with two jars of peanut butter - one has since gone the way of all things peanut-buttery. Then Ron and Gord showed up with a tub bearing the Kraft bears and 2 kilos of smooth, creamy peanutty goodness. And then if though they had not showered me with enough - hmmm showered = peanut butter, nope - then my old boss from Ottawa Yves, well he's not actually old more like my former boss, sent me.. well let me tell you about Yves.

Yves and his lady friend Linda were on a cruise - what is it with everyone I know and cruises, I thought that was old folks stuff, oh yeah sorry - and scheduled to stop off here for a day. We were going to meet at Piazza Navona have some pizza, a litre or two of wine and maybe some gelato and Laurent and I was going to get to meet Linda. Saturday morning Linda phones from the ship - poor Yves had taken ill during the night, the message was sort of garbled but had something to do with speedos and lemon juice I believe. Anyway Reader's Digest version they were being quarantined on the ship for 48 hours. We were disappointed and so was Yves - he said he had a small gift and wanted to see my face when I opened it.

Two days later when their ship docked in Bari they trotted off to the Post Office to send me my parcel. Now from previous postings you may realize that a trip to PostItalia is a major expedition but they took time out from their busy schedule to brave Italian bureaucracy to send me two jars of peanut butter. Now that's some boss!

And Yves, if you read this I had nothing to do with the quarantine signs all over your office - honestly!

As you can see I'm set with Peanut Butter now until at least Christmas - okay maybe the end of November. Grazie Carla, Ron and Gord, Linda and Yves - okay you may not be gods but you qualify ast the least as Peanut Butter fairies!

23 ottobre - San Giovanni da Capestrano

Nuts

I've had a major addiction weakness for peanut butter since I was a kid. Breakfast in my household has always meant orange juice, tea, brown toast and peanut butter - except on Sunday mornings when its orange juice, coffee and fried egg sandwich. And my allegiance has always been to Kraft Smooth - until recently it had less sugar than most of the other brands. None of this organic stuff, no Peter Pan or Jif - I find comfort in those two little bears on the green label. That's what should be on toast in the morning.

However finding peanut butter in Italy is a major problem. The breakfast - lunch and dinner - spread of choice is Nutella (a click on the jar will tell you all about it.) Created in 1940s by Pietro Ferrero, it purportedly has a hazelnut base and if their website is to be believed outsells peanut butter throughout the world. Its popularity is such that it's possible to get a Nutella pizza here - I would guess as a dolce course. I decided this week, in the absence of what god intended us to have as a breakfast spread I would give Nutella a try. I had real difficulty making out much of a hazelnut taste and the predominate flavour seemed to be sugar and chocolate. Not quite what I want for breakfast.

So imagine my joy when I found a jar of peanut butter in one of our local supermarkets yesterday.

350 Grams of Barney's Best Crema di Arachidi, made in Albany, Georgia - that's the state not the country.
350 grams of creamy peanuty goodness.
350 grams of breakfast nirvana for this morning's toast.
350 grams for only E 4.96 - that's only E 0.014 or CAD 0.021 (USD 0.02) per gram. I'll let you figure out what the jar cost in Canadian (or U.S.) dollars.

My peanut butter addiction weakness has become an expensive habit!

18 settembre - San Giuseppe da Copertino