The PBJ Done Right

Sometimes easy, simple and lazy is best.

In this case, Bub's PBJ and cream cheese its not just true but truly rocks. Bub hated to cook. In most cases every bite of her food clearly and painfully reminded you how much she hated to cook. Her PBJ and cream cheese was the exception.

Every bite was damn good.

The rules were simple. Get your hands on a good bagel. Which in Minnesota can be almost impossible. However, a plain Bruegger's bagel will do in a pinch. At least they are boiled and reasonably chewy. Cut the thing through the middle. Its OK. It can't feel a thing.

Then schmear Philadelphia brand cream cheese across one side of the bagel. This is not the time to be conservative, but wildly, flagrantly liberal. Do not skimp on the cream cheese. Do not use whipped cream cheese. Kraft cream cheese just has the right tang. Almost all the other cream cheeses taste too sweet or have no taste at all. If you want food with no taste go to almost any Minnesota-based office's pot luck. The bag of frozen Swedish meatballs had 'tangy' on the label. yeah, right.

Next. Spread Jif creamy style peanut butter on the other half of the bagel. Skippy's will do in a pinch. No. No. No. Don't be fooled. High end, all natural, organic peanut butter is not the same . It doesn't taste as good. It must be the all the corporatist chemicals in Jif that makes it taste better. It really does. Even Cook's Illustrated Magazine agrees. So, it must be true.

OK, here's where you have some choice in the matter. The jam or preserves. Either half of the bagel is fine. You can use strawberry, or whatever you got around the kitchen. It can be cheap stuff. Imported stuff. Organic; fine by me. I happened to use one-year old red currant preserves that I bought for another dish. Used once and promptly forget that it existed in my refrigerator. Until presto, it rose from the dead and blessed my lunch.

I am telling you it rocks. How can just adding the cream cheese make such a difference? You gotta just trust me and try it. You'll be happy. I mean, just check out the picture. Its the centerfold of PBJs.




Options. Yes, there are options.

You could make it out of standard white bread. But if you do, you must cut it diagonally. Corner to corner. in honor of my old friend Aaron Schloff. Who wouldn't eat any sandwich which wasn't cut diagonally. Because that's how his mother did it.


Another option; you could make like Elvis and add bacon.

I have never done this. I am worried I would have a heart attack right there and then. I am not sure if that would be because of the accumulated effects of all the saturated fat or from the sheer bliss. Actually, I am worried if I did add the bacon, my poor dead Bub would spin in her grave. I can even hear what she would say. "Oy vey, You had to do it. You had to add bacon to the sandwich. What will the Rabbi think!" Actually, that's not true at all. She really say, "Bacon is such a pain in the ass to cook. Why waste the time? Now go turn up NPR. I wanna hear that piece by Mozart better."