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National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day 2025
Today is National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. This is a perfect opportunity to revisit a childhood classic and to celebrate my beloved Kelly, because we go together like 🥜PB&J🍇.
A Nice Peanut Butter And Jelly With Chocolate Milk
Usually, about 2 hours before a game, I stuff in a nice peanut butter and jelly with chocolate milk. ~Rob Gronkowski
I ate them as a kid and I still eat them today. They’re delicious (like Kelly) and nutritious. They’re cost-effective and shelf-stable.
Needless to say, I just loves me a PB&J.
You’ve got nearly the entire food pyramid on a plate. It tastes good and it’s chock full of vitamins.
There’s protein, monounsaturated fats, magnesium and potassium from the peanut butter.
The bread brings dietary fiber, iron and B vitamins.
Let’s be fair, the jelly is just there for taste and texture.
All the same, it’s a winning combination, just like Kelly and me.
OG🥜PB&J🍇
The Original PB&J from 1901
Introduced in 1901 as a trendy finger sandwich, our beloved PB&J has gone through some interesting variations that you can see in the video above.
I agree with Max that the third slice of bread would be a bit much, even with delicate Pullman Bread.
I have had PB&Js with a variety of types of bread, but I really like the flavor-neutral white bread options.
Sliced white bread, hot dog or hamburger buns are all great options for a wholesome PB&J.
I love rye. I love pumpernickel. I love sourdough and soda bread, but not necessarily with PB&J.
Being completely honest, I’ve been eating Smucker’s Natural Peanut Butter straight out of the jar these last few years.
I did find sugar-free jelly and low-carb bread, but I find that dipping a serving spoon straight into the jar helps me skip the carbs and go straight to the protein.
It’s a quick, easy snack for me. I only eat when I’m actually hungry and a big spoon of peanut butter is typically enough to settle the rumbly in my tumbly so that I can get on with work or writing or whatever I’d rather be doing than absentmindedly grazing a bowl of snack food.
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – Rumbly in my Tumbly (lyrics)
Sugar 👹 Monster
I literally never ate fruit or vegetables before. My diet instead revolved around ice cream, chocolate, peanut butter and jelly eaten with a spoon, pick-n-mix, and lots of cereal and pasta – I was a sugar monster. ~Ella Woodward
It’s funny how a self-confessed sugar monster can become a world famous healthy food blogger. People change.
I was, until my diabetes diagnosis, also pretty much of a sugar monster. I have had to become more careful and discerning.
Experience is important for human development. Awareness of this helps to create a believable character.
For instance, Tim’s son, Dave, in The Sentinels was originally conceived of as a pun.
Because I based Tim on Scott Grimes as he plays Gordon Malloy in The Orville, I wanted Dave to be basically the opposite of Tim.
Tim is a classic Silver Age, super-likeable superhero. Dave, by contrast, is a 🔥 flaming 😡 asshole 🔥.
You start with a pun, but you make him human by explaining why he’s like that.
Unlike a lot of postmodern apologetic “sympathy for the devil“, nobody’s actually bad, misunderstood monster tropes; explaining why someone is the way they are isn’t necessarily excusing it.
You can see where mistakes were made. Maybe you’re sympathetic. Maybe you think, “well, that’s exactly what an asshole would do“. Hopefully, it’s a little of both.
Not all of my characters need to be likeable. They need to be believable. You have to be willing to accept that some people exist who do these things, be they laudable or lamentable.
We’ll have to see how that pans out.
Like many writers, the fact that these people inhabit my imagination make them “real” to me. I study them as one would passersby on a city sidewalk, people in a Starbucks or at worksites.
Some come to the front and show their facets. Some are vague caricatures. It’s just like the real world, except that the writer is the director of this cast.
A writer can call characters forward and interview them. A writer can dismiss a character or dive deep. A writer can call a purpose-built character or just wish one up from nowhere.
It’s pretty exciting when you think about it. I can hold entire other worlds between my ears and still have enough CPU to do my mentally exhausting job.
I am truly blessed, and mostly because my best friend for all eternity is here cheering me on.
💙 Awesome Wife | Awesome Life 🤍
That’s all for today. Hope you had a lovely 🥜PB&J🍇 Hump 🐫 Day and we’ll see you back on Saturday for something (surprisingly) not food-related. 🖖🏼