My secret food desire is...

The small child licks his sticky fingers not only to savor once-had sweets but to appreciate altogether undiscovered, complex, and underlying flavors that coat adventurous salty hands. The professional chef empathizes with the child, though he rejects the boy’s willingness to lick and suck without washing up, because his own savory pork loin is anointed with a sweet pomegranate glaze. Every culinary undertaking falls on a palate somewhere between that of the child who is nearly oblivious to what he might be ingesting, and the silver tongued, best-selling, food writer. From either end of that spectrum, the marriage of salty and sweet is met with satisfaction and praise. So then why should the plainly irresistible relationship between man, pretzel, and peanut butter only be carried out under the cover of nightfall, in a windowless dorm room, with locked doors, and low lights, and every element of security attended to? Because once I crack the jar and rend the bag of pretzels, I cast aside all sense of decency in the name of satisfying my most basic gastronomical desires.

Before too long, I find myself struggling to secure the last pat of peanut butter out of the bottom of the jar with a half broken pretzel as my only utensil. While consumed by this surgical operation, I become oblivious to everything else around me, including the obvious advantage of using a spoon to acquire my prize. The salty loop of baked dough, studded with small flecks of perfectly cubed salt glistening like diamonds against a backdrop of brown on top of more brown, seemed an obvious tool to break the placid surface of the newly cracked peanut butter jar. Unfortunately, the peanut butter ocean, like any other such body, is much deeper than it is wide. Therefore, I find myself faced with an untenable circumstance. A modern day Winnie the Pooh, I am trapped in the jar as much by my awkwardly angled scooping hand as by my steely, honey-bear-resolve. I am emotionally and physically uncomfortable but nevertheless unrelenting in my pursuit of the sweet stuff at the bottom of the jar. The outside observer would be no doubt ashamed of my behavior. I inadvertently smear my hands and clothes with the sticky, sweet, brown stuff. The markings are not only a measure of my current struggles but also a tribute to the many clashes between salty and sweet that led up to this point. And yet the present scenario should have been altogether avoidable. If I could only limit myself to six or twelve or twenty four scoops of sweet and salty goodness. Instead I return to the jar, each scoop more challenging than the last. Perhaps it is my thirst for continued struggle with the outside world that makes the deepest caverns of the jar so alluring. The peanut butter there is no different from that which coats my fingertips like an old friend clamoring for attention that will not be received until too late, but I always dig deeper into the jar, oblivious to the calling of my sugar coated digits or the glow and vibration of a cell phone which seeks to disrupt my rituals and reconnect me with a more amicable but far less instantaneously satisfying external world.

It is reasonable, albeit fruitless, for the reader to question why I go to such great lengths to forge a bond between pretzel and peanut butter that can be acquired with far less effort at any local grocery store. While the properly proportioned peanut butter and pretzel composition is no culinary masterpiece, it is no less a product of the diligence, desire, and practice of its creator. I am drawn not only to the intoxicating combination when it passes across my lips but to the very act of constructing the perfect pairing. “Milk straight from the cow always tastes better” and “even the runty vegetables from the backyard garden are much more satisfying.” The peanut butter straight from the jar (straight from the peanut butter processing plant) and the pretzels straight from the bag (straight from the pretzel making factory) nevertheless share something in common with the statements of the dairy farmer and amateur gardener: everyone is proud of things they produce themselves. That is why mom beams when she glosses up the frozen fish sticks with her own specially selected combination of equally frozen vegetables instead of settling for the less than satisfying offerings from the TV dinner package. Our ability to shape the world can be so limited at times, but in the kitchen, anyone can be master as long as he does not settle for letting others do the work for him.

All of this begs the question: where should the line be drawn between preparing a meal from its source and allowing some steps to be done for you? This is a question that defies an obvious answer. I will however, hasten a guess as far as it concerns my love affair with pretzels and peanut butter. I am unable to resist the allure of peanut butter and pretzels in the grocery store aisle long enough to consider the prospects of making either the peanut butter or the pretzels on my own. Every person has his limits and when the craving manifests itself, I am unable to resist the siren call from the pantry room. Once again I find myself seeking cover while I indulge my basic desires. Perhaps I hope to hide with careful planning not only my animal nature in the face of peanut butter and pretzels, but also the philosophical debate that develops when I start to think about my relationship to my secret, salty, and sweet craving.