They are not making chunky peanut butter anymore,at least not in bulk. I am not spending top dollar for an item that I can easily craft in my own kitchen for a fraction of the cost. The boys do not like creamy peanut butter and were completely on board with my plan. In fact, they were in love with my plan. It is a long story.
I can find creamy peanut butter for $2.49 at Aldi.
Aldi is the new German grocery store chain popping up all over the east coast. You pay 25 cents for a grocery cart and you bag your own items. It is bare bones at its best. Fabio says he feels like he is in a little village in Russia when he shops there. It definitely draws in the shawl wearing grandmas from the neighborhood.
One year ago TODAY (!) the boys and I took a taxi cab up to Mussourie from Dehradun in India.
That first taxi got us to the center of town and then we had to take another one further up the mountains to the house we were staying in. The views were freaking us out. I mean it. All of us. We could not be quiet about it. The boys were "Mom, look..." "No, look over here..." "Wow." "Oh my God!" We just could not believe what were seeing. I did. I cried. It was in your face awe-inspiring beauty. I felt like I could reach out and touch it. It was so close. These pictures don't do it justice. It was all around us. Our driver was so amused with us. Didn't he see it too? He had always seen it.
Anyway, view or not, the boys were getting skinny. They weren't eating anything except for chapatis and fruit. Sometimes I got them potato chips. I told the driver that we were hungry, did he know any place where we could eat? He drove us up to a clearing in the woods surrounded by the most majestic mountains I had ever seen.The Himalayas had never looked better. In the middle of the clearing was a building with a sign that said "PIZZA". The boys were sure that they were in Heaven.
They served Coca-Cola-the real thing, the kind they made in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A! We ordered cheese pizza. The boys could not believe their eyes when it came to our table. It looked just like pizza! It was perfectly round with red sauce and cheese. What were the odds? It was sliced into 8 pieces, just like in America. They cautiously took bites. It tasted normal! All that and Coca-Cola too?
They were delirious. They each had three pieces and I got them another Coke to split. They were the happiest boys ever.
After filling up on perfectly normal pizza we found our friend Kanwarjit's house down a long dead end lane teeming with monkeys in trees (but that is another story).We unpacked and settled in, every room had a view of the Himalayas. This was the view from my bathroom. I would live there for months at a time if I could (the pizza place delivers).
The next day we set off to do some exploring. We walked all over the place. I am surprised that more Hollywood productions don't use this place as a back drop. It looks like it was created in some back lot with trick photography and state of the art lighting. This place isn't real. It couldn't be.The air was so crisp, I wanted to bite it. I found myself thinking more clearly. Everything felt fresh and clean. Breathing in Mussourie was fun.It was strangely endless beauty. It just didn't stop.
On our way home we stopped at Prakash's General Store. "For Everything You Need" to buy provisions. The house where we were staying had cooks who made all of our meals.
The boys gobbled up breakfast because it was jam paranthas , porridge and chai.
I knew that they would not fare as well at lunch or dinner. This is a picture of Owen at dinner the first night. At least he tried. Enzo didn't even try, he just went to bed. Owen made a small attempt. He choked down some rice because he was starving. That meal was fantastic. They made us something with eggplant and okra.
I could count on the boys to eat about three chapatis. We had been in India just a little over a week and they were already over rice. Just plain sick of it, they said. Forget subjis and dal or anything "foreign". They had no idea what they were missing. I was very understanding because I was the same way at their age. I remember it well. My refusal to eat Indian food always happened in New Jersey,however, a stones throw from a McDonald's.
My sister Jo married Ravi when I was eleven. She used to take me to all of her new Indian friend's houses. If it was nearing dinnertime she would stop at McDonald's for me on the way. How embarrassing for everyone now that I think about it. I can't believe what I missed! I have seen pictures of some of these dinner parties, plates brimming with foreign delights that I refused to allow myself to enjoy. I wonder why kids are like that? It is so weird.
Anyway, I understood. I felt their desperate pain. I knew that they were hungry(I knew because they endlessly reminded me, they were hardly stoic). They were in INDIA and they didn't like Indian food, now that is a tough break. Prakash's General Store "For Everything You Need" was just the ticket.
They had hilarious things (not cheap) that gave my boys comfort. Froot Loops? In a Himalayan Hill Station? One of my little childhood things that I have carried over with my own children is that we only buy sugar cereal on birthdays. That's what my parents did. The rest of the year it was Cornflakes and Rice Crispies. The boys fussed that I had six siblings and they were only two in the house. We buy it in honor of Rachel's birthday and also for mine and Fabio's birthdays. We buy five boxes of sugar cereal a year. I made an exception. Rachel's birthday was 2 weeks away, after all. You should have seen the look of glee on their faces. Score.
Prakash's had more to offer than Froot Loops and Snickers bars. They had homemade stuff too. The cereal and pre-packaged stuff cost the earth- more than what it would have cost in America- but the homemade stuff was ridiculously reasonable. They had homemade cheese (sharp cheddar!),bread, pesto, and PEANUT BUTTER!
It was the best peanut butter that we had ever eaten. The boys could not believe this peanut butter. It was really good peanut butter. I imagined a small man out back gazing at the mountains shelling peanut after peanut. I am sure I am right. It was the freshest peanut butter that I had ever eaten and I had spent nine years in Georgia.
At last, I had found something that my boys would eat! As we left town we stopped at Prakash's to stock up peanut butter. All they had was smooth. The boys were crestfallen. They only like chunky for some reason. They would have taken it though. They were sort of desperate.
I asked Mr. Prakash if he had any chunky peanut butter. He laughed and said that he could easily make us as much as we wanted. He had made the smooth peanut butter especially for us. He had seen young American boys in the store a few days before and saw that I was buying peanut butter. He thought that we would be back for more and that is usually when he is asked if he carries smooth peanut butter.
We bought four big jars of chunky peanut butter back with us to Dehradun and returned to Mussourie later in our trip to restock our larder. We ended up bringing two jars back with us to Providence. The boys loved having it in the comfort of their American kitchen, and were sad when we used the last of it.
I know I can go to Whole Foods and use that peanut grinding machine and get similar results but the boys love making it our way and I love that it costs just rupees to make.
We call it "Mussourie Peanut Butter"
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