Oh Nuts!

There are more nuts in this world than you could ever imagine and I seem to run into them all. I really do not like peanut butter. I like the looks, the smell, the way it spreads, but not the taste. You cannot imagine how many ways there are to use peanut butter in otherwise perfectly wonderful foods. I have bought what I thought was butterscotch cream pie only to discover is was peanut butter pie! It lurks in cookies, cakes, candy, almost anything that is sweet.

However, peanuts are not the only nut. There are walnuts, which I find more useful for staining fingers and furniture than eating. They have a strange salty taste that reminds me of watermelons. No one else ever finds this to be true, but it is still the most overwhelming taste I take away from those times I was forced to eat something with walnuts in it.

Cashews are not bad in my opinion, although the cost really does not justify my buying them for me alone. I have a friend who uses cashews in all sorts of things I would never dream of. He even put them in meatloaf once, which he still denies, but who could imagine something like that? Another friend likes it as cashew butter which I found palatable and much better than the alternatives at the time.

Pecans are probably my favorite, but that is because I make an awesome pecan pie and what could be bad about all the eggs, butter and sugar, except maybe a heart attack. I also like pecan pralines and pecan cookies. Pecans seem to marry themselves to brown sugar and I was born loving anything butterscotch, or brown sugary, or maple sugary.

Then there are the garden variety of nuts that make this world a more interesting place. Without them, who would test our patience and wisdom? Without them, how would modern day Merlins find ways for young Arthurs and Galahads to prove themselves? Who else would dream of writing about the mundane in such unique and witty ways? Are they interesting? Absolutely! Easy to live with? About as easy as living with a cat, who after years of freedom is adopted by a new owner and suddenly discovers both his privates and claws are all gone. Trust is not in his vocabulary.

I am surrounded by nuts, some are sweet, some are bitter, a few are okay and one or two appear to be here just to see if they can drive me nuts.