Tea & Peanut Butter

It would be presumptuous of me to declare that Krema Nut Company, of Columbus, Ohio, makes the best peanut butter in the world. Obviously I haven't tried every peanut butter in the world - yet - though I have sampled quite a few.

But if you're a fan of all natural peanut butter, which, in my book, means a substance that contains only ground peanuts, you could do a lot worse than Krema.

Krema's peanut butter is available in jars, cases and the ever so handy five pound pail. I ordered two of the latter recently - that's ten pounds of the stuff, friends - so that should give you a prety good idea of how highly I regard this one.

But what's all this got to do with tea, you ask? Well, I'm working my way around to that. You see, in my humble estimation, there are only really a few ways to consume peanut butter.

The best way is straight from the jar, with nothing to get in the way. Next on the list is with apples and that's about the extent of it, as far as I'm concerned, though with carrots or celery is acceptable.

The problem with eating peanut butter straight from the jar is that is tends to gum up the works after while and you eventually begin to feel like you're going to choke. There's a valid scientific reason for this phenomenon - this whole sticking to the roof of the mouth thing. It's simply that peanuts have such a low moisture content that peanut butter - especially in large quantities - sucks up your saliva and makes for tough swallowing.

Which is where tea comes in. For, if you're like me and you like to eat massive quantities of the stuff there are few better ways to cut the stickiness than with a hot cup of tea. Anything will do, but I'm kind of partial to black in a situation like this.

So try it, as the old ad slogan goes, you'll like it.