My love affair with a PB&J

I have been a classroom teacher for the last five years.  Of those five years, I have eaten a peanut butter & jelly sandwich every.single.day (minus the ever indulgent teacher workdays or rockstar leftovers) for lunch.  I guess  this could be described as one of my eccentric habits...doesn't everyone have at least one!?

I do not, however, think of myself as being one of those crazies who has a habit that they can't bear to break.  I go with the flow pretty easily and can adapt to a lot of new things.  Over these past five years, I've spent 60 days backpacking in Europe, 3 months living in New York City and have worked in 3 different schools.  I can be flexible.

One thing that has remained a constant weekday after weekday - my lunch.  I look forward to my triangle cut pb&j, my helping of Pirate's Booty, a banana and organic applesauce.  It's my thing.  The peanut butter lasts so long - the protein, the stick to your insides goodness, the perfect accompaniment of strawberry jam.  A lunch for the stars.  It makes this teacher very happy and keeps me from snacking too heavily mid-afternoon once the kiddos leave.  Perfect? I think so.

While it may seem hard to believe, I'm not one of those die-hard peanut butter lovers.  You know the type - the ones who happily lick spoonfuls of peanut butter and believe everything is better with a scoop of crunchy (my favorite).  I do like the taste but I like even better than I'm getting full on something that I feel good about putting into my body.  No preservatives, no hydrogenated oils - all natural goodness inside my lunchbox.

Imagine my smile when I stumbled upon the Peanut Butter & Co. in the West Village on our most recent New York visit.  

C was interviewing one day, so I wandered in to have the most delicious lunch.  Just me, a pb&j and my kindle.  I ordered The Elvis - grilled wheat bread with crunchy pb, bananas and honey.  Holy peanut butter! It was delicious.  Match it with a bottled coke and an on-the-house slice of peanut butter pie, I was in school-lunch heaven.  

Tomorrow is the first day back to school after a much needed and much loved week long spring break.  I'm not sure what my day will have in store, but I do know one thing for certain - my lunch will be fantastic.