Monday, September 17, 2007

PBCC

I have a shameful secret. It's very, very shameful.

Sometimes? I like to eat bread with peanut butter and chocolate chips for breakfast. I always thought it was some terrible aberration, but it turns out my roommate does too. We got talking about it tonight because we were washing dishes, and we washed the grater. Now usually, washing the grater entails removing either fossilized cheese or lemon rind, and this time it was surprisingly clean. I tried to remember what I'd last used it for, because don't you hate washing dishes that were already clean? And then I remembered: we were out of chocolate chips on Saturday, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I wanted chocolate, so I grated some semisweet chocolate onto the peanut butter. For the record: gross. Why, I couldn't say.

After my roommate had finished laughing at me, we discussed the rules of making PBCC, because it turns out that there are rules, and we independently came up with the same ones, at some point in our past. (Indicating that they're actually Natural Laws.)

1. You can't buy chocolate chips at the store in order to make PBCC. You can only use ones that are hanging around the pantry. Then you're Using Something Up, which is a good thing.

2. Opening a fresh bag is also frowned upon. You can do it, but only in case of a real PBCC emergency (such as exams, moving, etc.)

3. Use of chocolate chip substitutes will likely end poorly. (See above. Also, when I was a kid I used to use hot chocolate powder once in a while. Usually I would inhale some, and then I wouldn't try it again until I'd forgotten how much it sucked to be coughing hot chocolate.)

4. The chocolate chips need to be properly distributed. If you put them on too thickly, they'll fall off (and you'll be a Greedy Person, which is worse). If you try to be clever and put them on thinly so you don't have to feel guilty, you'll be left totally unsatisfied, and it won't have been worth it.

5. If at all possible, have a glass of skim milk with it, so that you can feel healthy and virtuous. I think it's kind of like putting sweetener in your coffee and then having dessert.

Horrified? I promise I ate healthy food for the rest of the weekend. Really!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I have a shameful secret too... I think I learned the delights of PBCC from a former roommate of mine, meaning that I cannot in good conscience claim any of Pamela's story as "Original Carrie". However, it seems that there is a strange roommate thread running through the PBCC myth. Perhaps it all started with a secret roommate society who initiated all secret meetings with group indulgence in the secret shameful food of PBCC... Okay, or maybe it's more to do with poor college students and their ridiculous eating habits, some of which turn out to be a tastier concept than one would have thought, and therefore find their way into our adult diets. But only if you eat it in secret.