Peanut butter cookies

If I just scrape a little from the top of the lid, its not a real bite. Nor is a skim of the spoon off the creamy swirling surface of pure peanutbuttery deliciousness.
Mantequa de cacahuate as they say in Mexico where it is difficult to find the American staple and where we savored a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich on bollos.
I'm thinking about our cruising adventure a lot these days.
Long nights at sea, my spoon reaching deeper into the jar searching for smears of my favorite midnight snack stuck under the curvy lip as my eyes search the horizon for fishing boats and overhead for shooting stars.
Mantequa de cacahuate.

I am in Florida so finding peanut butter is not a problem.

My favorite recipe is one that my friend Jed passed on to us in a compilation of family recipes he and his wife Monica used on their boat, The MaryAnne II. They are also responsible for the most amazing margaritas I have ever experienced.
In my life.
In the cockpit of their boat on a breezy Baja California evening, we all sat with cold margaritas and flushed faces reading from Steinbeck's "Log from the Sea of Cortez." Gasping and laughing hysterically, I read the passage about Steinbeck's notoriously stubborn outboard. We had been battling our engine all the way down the Baja coast, so Steinbeck plus margarita equaled hilarity.

We didn't have cookies that night. On our boat Gitane, we didn't have an oven.
In my crew house, I have an oven, but no margaritas. Cookies for my class, cookies for my roommates, and on Friday after the exam, margaritas and martinis for all!

Peanut butter cookies

1 cup PB
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda (or in my world, powder if you don't have soda or the baking soda you do have has been soaking up nasty fumes in the back of the fridge for years maybe)

Mix it all up, add some vanilla or cinnamon or whatever. Roll into balls and smash onto a cookie sheet. Bake for awhile at 350.

Gluten free and tasty.