This past week, I was reading an article that discussed the best rated peanut butter brands in the U.S. Comments following the article mentioned a certain New England brand that I loved when I was in Boston: Teddie Peanut Butter. A former boyfriend got me hooked on this, as it was a local Massachusetts brand that seems to only distribute in the New England area, as I have yet to see it anywhere outside of a Massachusetts grocery store. Teddie is famous for making all natural peanut butter — in other words, no added oil or sugar. The only addition that IS allowed — salt! And if you ask me, that’s the only addition that is needed or should ever be added. Mainstream brands like Skippy and Jif, while temporarily satisfying, have extra palm or vegetable oil added to make it easier to spread the peanut butter, and the extra sugar is really, really unnecessary and borderline too sweet. Peanuts have a natural sweetness that comes out especially after you roast them, so why is there a need to make this glorious nutty spread even sweeter?! All peanut butter needs is a little savory balance from some salt, and then, it becomes pure magic. And I don’t know what makes these specific peanuts so good that they use…. I’ve tried other all-natural brands from Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s that are organic and have nothing else added to the peanuts other than salt, and for some reason, they just don’t compare to the special combination of Teddie peanuts and salt. This peanut butter has the perfect balance of sweetness and saltiness that just makes it peanut butter sent down from the peanut gods… if they exist.

I was telling my Boston-based colleague about how much I loved this peanut butter, and she so generously and graciously presented a brand new jar of Teddie organic all natural peanut butter (with salt) to me when she showed up at the office earlier this week. I was ecstatic — it was the biggest highlight of the entire week. And when we got notified we had to work from home beginning today due to COVID-19, the very first thing I thought about was... I left my Teddie’s in the office fridge.

So, naturally, I went to the office at midday today to retrieve it. I mean.. I had to, right? I hadn’t had this peanut butter since 2011! I told some colleagues that I did this… and they found the entire thing hysterical.

It certainly was not beyond me to do something like this, but hey… I travel for food. And what’s the worst that could seriously have happened, anyway?