Grape Jelly

My favorite lunch was peanut butter
and jelly on white or whole wheat
with the crust cut off and cut on a diagonal
or I wouldn’t eat it. Crunchy or smooth
peanut butter, I vacillated between them.

Grape jelly. Not strawberry or raspberry
or orange marmalade that I still dislike,
and the only butter was peanut butter.

Grape jelly, like I put on white rice
and still do, though I don’t know why,
maybe because rice is sticky like
Nana’s farina and she always put
a spoonful of grape into the middle
and let me mix it up. I didn’t always
eat it but I liked it.

Today, my favorite lunch is Goober’s,
the brilliant invention of peanut butter
and grape jelly in a jar; a spoon, no need
for bread or cutting crust or diagonal cuts.
Once, I bought strawberry Goober’s,
just once.

Some people put grape jelly in sauce
saying it cuts the acid from tomatoes
but I’ve never done it. I did find
a recipe for meatballs cooked in
grape jelly and ketchup, another favorite
growing up, a staple for hiding my peas
and drowning anything I didn’t like.

I’m going to make these meatballs,
my kind of simple. Frozen meatballs,
store bought ketchup and grape jelly.
Slow cook, serve hot over white rice.
Perfect pairings.

~ J R Turek Hour 18