How to properly make a PB&J

First, you want to pick your ingredients.

The bread selection is absolutely essential. Typically, most PB&Js are served on white bread, whole wheat bread, or honey wheat bread, but you can feel free to let your creativity flow here. Ciabatta, sourdough, a sesame semolina loaf from your local Panera... even a bagel. There are some bread choices I would shy away from (such as rye or pumpernickel), but you really don't learn about how to be a culinary master without a few mistakes.

As far as peanut butter, tastes vary. I prefer a nice creamy peanut butter, but there's many who are crunchy fanboys. Also, lets not forget the healthier alternatives; Natural peanut butter also comes with the added benefit of giving you enough of a work out in stirring the separated halves together that it negates any calories in the sandwich (which means you can add Nutella without feeling guilty).

Most people, when picking Jelly, forget that there's more than one fruit on the planet. Have you ever tried a peanut butter and apricot jelly sandwich? That's right. Apricot. Gordon Ramsay would be proud.

Your next step is to get everything set out. The key to making an amazing sandwich is always preparation.

You want to lay out two slices of bread on a plate.
You want to have two knives out. This is to prevent the classic rookie mistake of cross contamination later in the process.
You want to have your peanut butter and jelly out. This step seems obvious, but I have seen many sandwich artisans forget the basics.
You want a napkin. Although a large part of learning is taking chances, making mistakes, and getting messy (or so I learned from television), there's no sense in making your counters all sticky and gross if you don't have to.

Make sure you plan out your ratios. Too often have I seen sandwiches made with far too much peanut butter or far too much jelly. This sandwich is all about balance. It's like the buddhist monk of sandwiches. An edible ying-yang.

Alright, it's time. Are you ready, brave noms-warrior? Let's get down to business.

Open your peanut butter. Waft in that nutty goodness. Memory is strongly tied to smell, and you want to be able to remember this sandwich forever.

Grab your knife, and scoop out the desired amount. Remember, grasshopper. Balance.

Scrape your knife slowly across one side of one of the bread slices. That's an important detail. You don't want that gooey paste on the side of the bread where your hand is going to be, do you? Then it'll get in your hair, and all the boys in your 7th grade class will make fun of you. Or so I hear, from... legends.

Now, put that knife in the dishwasher. I know it'll seem wasteful, but I read on cracked.com or something that dishwashers waste less water than handwashing, so do it. For the trees.

Open the jelly and grab your second knife. This is the turning point for all sandwiches. The true test of if you have enough discipline and inner peace to get the balance between sweet and nutty just perfect. This is the moment you've been training your whole life for. Scoop out the jelly, and put it on one side of the other slice of bread.

Oh man, you're so close to being done now. Do you feel it? The power of the sandwich rising in you like the dough of the ancients?

Take the slice covered in jelly and place it, jelly side down, on top of the peanut butter. It's okay to cry at the beauty of these two powerful flavors merging together at last to create gustatory perfection. I know I have.

Once the powerful wave of emotions has subsided, feel free to take yet another knife and cut the sandwich however you chose. Remember, you are the artist. You made this masterpiece. You are the reason that I am drooling right now, as I type this, imagining your impeccable sandwich as my stomach sings hymns of praise.

The time has come, now, for you to become one with the sandwich. Go ahead, have a bite. It was made for you.




((This came from the question:  "Explain how you would tell someone how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich." on a job application. This is what I sent them.))