PB and Spiders

It’s story time. 

Once upon a time, when I was a teenager, I was blessed to have a solid group of friends. Although I didn’t realize what a blessing it was until many years later, these kids were reliable and trustworthy, a true boon in my young life. I spent pretty much every waking hour outside of Sundays and family obligations with some permutation of this friend group. On the weekends, we would rotate through different houses for unplanned parties, throwing local parks into the mix when the weather permitted. We were also big fans of the dollar theater at the mall where we saw a variety of flicks on Friday or Saturday nights.

One evening I went to a movie with my friends. I trusted these kids and knew they had the same standards I did. As such, it never occurred to me to ask what movie we were seeing. The time spent with them was the main point, after all, and the actual movie was of little importance in the grand scheme of things. However, that is one time that I should have asked, because the movie we saw was “Arachnophobia.” Although there wasn’t really anything inappropriate about that film, there were emotional ramifications that came along with that viewing that exist to this day.

You would think that a person who had grown up in a partially finished basement bedroom populated with a plethora of creepy crawlies of all kinds would not be bothered by a movie about spiders. I’d been happily squishing them for most of my life after all. Even the ones that were the size of a small dog were no biggie. They simply required a heavier weapon. But there is this one scene where a spider crawls into a guy’s ear and then nastiness ensues. And that was where this became an emotionally scarring event. My viewing of the original “Wrath of Khan” as a young child had given me a serious ick factor where things crawling into my ears was concerned and that full body shudder in the making was firmly cemented by “Arachnophobia.”

Now to switch gears completely…

Everyone knows that chocolate and peanut butter are a beautiful flavor combination. However, it is a lethal combination at my house. It will literally kill 50% of my children and while it won’t kill me, it will definitely make me unhappy after the fact. As such, it is not a thing around here. Kevin, Daniel and Nathan will get their pb & choc fix away from home and that is about as far as it goes. 

I’ve been using almond butter and sunflower seed butter as substitutes in baking for years, but any fun food ideas that made use of peanut butter cups were automatically off the list. Then a few years ago, to my delight, I discovered a sun butter chocolate cup that not only mimicked the shape of the original peanut butter cups but tasted remarkably similar. And perhaps an even bigger win was the fact that Matthew loved them. I could only find the normal sized ones locally which meant any mini cup treats were still not an option, but earlier this year I finally found a natural grocer that carries the mini ones as well. And my fun food mind started rolling!

This evening’s treat was a landmark event for several reasons. First of all, mini peanut butter cups were a key element, one for which we were able to use the newly acquired mini sunbutter cups. Second, the cookie base was a peanut butter cookie which we were able to create using almond butter. And finally, the Halloweeny element was the creation of an army of spiders. And despite my aversion to most spiders, these ones turned out so cute! Even the slightly deformed ones. Because there are a few. There was a learning curve associated with creating these little creepers and some of them ended up looking like they had been stepped on. There are a couple that haver really short legs, especially on one side or the other. I even ended up with one three-eyed spider. I was opening a new package of candy eyes and the package was not being very cooperative. When it finally opened, eyes flew everywhere. One landed in exactly the right place to make that triple eyed arachnid and the chocolate was still melty enough that it stuck. I didn’t move it at all. It was completely accidental, but fun!

My family consumed these sweet arachnids with wild abandon. They report that both dark and milk chocolate sunbutter cups were tasty, and I loved the mild white chocolate flavor with the almond butter cookies. We are also all in agreement that the cookies were delicious, even without the tasty toppings. The recipe will definitely be added to our cookbook. And eating them didn’t even give me the heebie jeebies. So that’s a win all the way around.  

And just by way of being completely honest, I still have spider issues. But nowadays I just suck them up with the vacuum. Problem solved.