Peanut Brittle.
My grandmother makes the best peanut brittle around.
She sends us home with it, tupperware upon tupperware, every time we visit her in rural Pennsylvania, because she's the sort of woman who's great at making things but terrible at taking portions into account. So I get very excited when my father visits his parents on his own, because I know he'll come back toting too much of that fantastic snack and I'll have to eat my share of it.
I don't see her as often as I'd like, largely because I spend most of my time 3,000 miles away, but also because I tend to get greedy with my hometown whenever I have the opportunity to visit it and end up staying within the same 20-mile radius any time I find myself back on the east coast. Why would I go all the way to Pennsylvania when I have a perfectly good New Jersey at my fingertips?
(I also go to New York, I guess, but that's because I'm an asshole.)
I don't actually know what goes into making peanut brittle. The only time I've made caramel was accidentally, when I added browned butter to sugar before it had enough time to cool. My grandmother, though, she only makes caramel on purpose. She's very good at making the sort of snacks that every health organization despises. Everything she makes is laden with butter and sugar, and it's the tastiest possible thing in the world.
I've been missing my grandparents lately. I guess it's a symptom of being far away without a real purpose anymore. Until May, I'd at least been working on a degree (one my grandparents helped pay for despite not having too much to offer) but now it just seems spiteful. I chose my college based on greatest distance from where I grew up, not really thinking about all the consequences.
But, peanut brittle. I wish I could even describe this peanut brittle to the level it deserves, but I don't think it's possible. Suffice it to say, fillings quake in fear every time it's brought out. People for miles around feel twinges in their pancreases. It is the perfect combination of texture and taste, and it remains that way for as long as it lasts (granted, that's not actually much time, as it gets scarfed down within a matter of days no matter how much the woman makes).
I come from a family of bakers. Everyone I've descended from, on both sides, has been terrible at cooking. The room for interpretation and improvisation is terrifying to our horde of tiny women and the men who've loved them. We are not the type to "go with it." We are the type to find a recipe, hang onto it for as long as we may live, and keep doing the same thing indefinitely because we know we're good at it, we know it's perfect, and doing anything else would be absolutely horrifying. I may make other people handle the greater part of my diet, but I can make dessert like nobody's business.
I don't think anything is as perfect as my grandmother's peanut brittle, though. I still don't even have the nerve to ask her for the recipe, because I know if I tried to make it I'd just end up disappointing myself.
