A problem.

Growing up, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were the way to go. They were gold to me, the pinnacle of every school day lunch. Something about the smooth comforting taste and texture of the peanut butter so intimately joined with the sweet fruit jelly made my tastebuds excited with every bite.

Sometimes, my Power Rangers lunchbox would end up buried under my math and reading books that were shoved willy-nilly in my backpack. They would smoosh the two adjacent pieces of white bread together, molding the two inner ingredients into one. That was the best. It formed a kind of pancake patty sandwich, thin and delicious.

Back then, the ratio of peanut butter to jelly always had to be high. Peanut butter was always far superior, and I would regularly let my dear sweet mother know this.

I would inform her weekly of her PB&J making performance, what she could improve and also praise her when things were just right. And she would always inform me that each one was made with her special ingredient, love. I told her that I could taste the love that she put in there, and that would make her smile.

What I'm writing about, however, is to discuss a turning point in my PB&J life, because I have recently had a poor peanut butter experience. No, I have not acquired an allergy against it or eaten from some expired jar. What I did, though, was settle for buying the store brand peanut butter to save money versus buying one of the known good brands (JIF, Skippy, and Peter Pan).

There are some products where you can save money by simply purchasing the generic store brand (ibuprofen, napkins, and pasta, to name a few), so I mistakenly thought it would be the same for peanut butter. But, in this assumption, I was wrong. I bought Giant brand, saved maybe a buck, and have kicked myself ever since. Don't make the same mistake that I did. Its texture is grainy and unappetizing, its taste lackluster and gross.

Because of this unfortunate error, I have recently reconsidered jelly's role in a good PB&J. Jelly is not to be ignored. It makes peanut butter shine. You can't have one without the other, in my opinion.

I may even go so far as to say jelly is the better component. Maybe it is the 20-year-old me speaking up or some bitter hesitation carrying over from my recent poor peanut butter purchase decision (say that five times fast), but I think I like jelly more. Plus, you have so many more options with jelly. You can have classic grape, strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, boysenberry, and more (basically anything ending in "berry"), and if you want to get wild, you can move away from the jelly and experiment with jam, spread, or preserves, coming from a jar, tub, or the hip new squeeze bottle.

I went grocery shopping tonight to restock my apartment and decided to forget about the old Giant peanut butter and lay down the appropriate funds to buy Skippy creamy brand. I'm not looking back.

But, now I am left with a jar of Giant peanut butter, about 80% full, that I will probable not eat. But, out of some misplaced sense of not wanting to waste it, I don't have the heart to throw it away. Afterall, there are starving kids in China. What to do...what to do?