My mother hates peanut butter.

Most mornings, I get up and slice a piece of bread off my latest favourite loaf, toast it up and spread some peanut butter on top. That, along with a couple of cups of coffee, is breakfast. My favourite peanut butter is Trader Joe’s Organic Creamy Peanut Butter – delicious, natural, only two ingredients, just salty enough. Smucker’s Natural Creamy Peanut Butter is a pretty good substitute when I can’t get to Trader Joe’s, but I have to admit, often I’ll make the trip to TJ’s just to get their peanut butter. It’s sort of their loss leader for me (only I doubt they’re taking a loss!).

Perhaps five days a week, I get up and as I’m spreading the peanut butter on my toast, I think of my mother. She really hates peanut butter. Now you may think this is not a big deal, but my mother is not extreme. My mother is not someone who makes outrageous claims or speaks in superlatives. She has a solid personality. She’s reliable, dependable, practical and full of common sense (more than anyone else I know) – she grounds me. My mother doesn’t “hate” things. And yet… she hates peanut butter.

Sometimes, when I’m preparing my breakfast, I think back to a trip my family made to Tobago when I was about twelve years old. We were staying at a beach resort, and I thought it one of the best holidays ever. I was allowed to wander around the little resort on my own, swim in the pool and visit the bar for a pina colada and say “charge it to my room”! Does it get any better than that? Of course, it was a virgin pina colada, but I didn’t have to order it like that – the bartender and I had an understanding. I’m sure, in retrospect, there was a watchful parental eye on me all the time, but it was imperceptible at the moment, and I felt like an adult for one of the first times in my life.

One night at the resort restaurant, my family had just finished our main meal and the waiter came over to ask us if we were interested in dessert. Silly question – he clearly did not know my family and our very serious and professional approach to eating. He started to go over our options. When he got to ice cream (another subject taken very seriously by my family), my mother… or perhaps it was my father, who is the real ice cream expert and fanatic, inquired about flavors. It doesn’t really matter who asked. The point is that as the waiter went down the list of flavors, he suddenly said “peanut butter”. My mother shuddered violently in her chair and exclaimed “Eeeuuuwwwwuuuuggggghhhh!” in a loud voice. My brother and I looked over in alarm at the woman who had consistently instructed us in royal-standard table etiquette since our infancy. The waiter was taken aback, and even my father looked somewhat shocked. Indeed, other diners at other tables might have looked over for all I know. Mum quickly regained her composure and apologized for her outburst. It took a second for all of us to recover and start breathing again, and then we laughed. I’m sure I thought it great to see a tiny crack in the wall of perfect tableside manner. Truth is, I’ve never forgotten the incident. You see, that’s what peanut butter can do to my mother.

Most of the time, however, when I’m spreading what I think is delicious peanut butter on my morning toast, I think about the light in my mother’s dark and deep-seeded hatred for peanut butter. Every day of my brother’s and my junior and senior high school years, my mother would get up in the morning and make us peanut butter sandwiches, even though she hated just the smell of the spread. Sometimes, a little peanut butter would get on her finger and she would pop her finger into her mouth simply to clean it off. This automatic reaction was always followed with a little choke and “bleecgh” sound, as Mum would rush to get a glass of water or something to get rid of the taste in her mouth. And yet, the next morning, she would rise and suffer through the production of another set of peanut butter sandwiches for us to take to school.

I don’t have peanut butter on toast most mornings because my mother hates peanut butter. I have it because peanut butter reminds me of my mother, who loves me.