How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

While earning my MBA at Mills College in Oakland, I took a course called Business Communication, taught by Professors Barbara Blissert and Ileen Erickson.

One evening, the other students and I entered the classroom to find a loaf of bread, some paper plates, a jar of peanut butter and a jar of grape jelly sitting on the front table. The starving student in me thought, "Yum. I wouldn't mind having a free dinner tonight." I sat down, eyeing the food on the table in anticipation. But our professors had something entirely different planned.

Our assignment that evening was called "How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich." Each of us had fifteen minutes to write the directions for making a basic PB&J. After our time was up, we handed our papers to a teacher's assistant. She selected a sheet at random and began following the directions written on it word for word, as if she had never made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before.

The resulting sandwich was a mess: several slices of bread in a haphazard pile, covered with sticky grape jelly on the outside and a large scoop of un-spread peanut butter on the inside. The student had written "some bread" instead of "one slice," and she hadn't specified which sides of the bread to stick together. The demonstration, in all of its absurdity, was meant to teach us concise and explicit communication.

So for all of you PB&J-lovers out there, here is my concise and explicit recipe for the PB&J's cousin, Jasmine's Peanut Butter, Fried Banana and Honey Sandwich (trust me, it's good).

Ingredients:

• 2 slices of whole-wheat bread
  
• 2-1/2 to 3 tbsp chunky peanut butter
• 1 banana
  
• 1 tbsp honey
• a drizzle of canola oil to coat the pan
  
• a sprinkle of cayenne pepper
  

Directions:

1. Place the two slices of bread side by side on a large plate.
   
2. Spread the peanut butter onto the face of one of the slices of bread with a butter knife.
   
3. Drizzle the honey evenly onto the face of the remaining plain slice of bread.
4. Preheat the canola oil in a small frying pan on a stovetop to medium-high heat.
   
5. Peel the banana, discard the peel, then slice its flesh into even quarters, slicing once lengthwise and once across.
   
6. Place the pieces of banana into the preheated oil, long flat side down.
7. Let the banana fry for about two minutes. Using a pair of tongs, flip each piece of banana onto its long uncooked side and let it fry for another two to three minutes, until it caramelizes.
   
8. Sprinkle the cooked banana with a teensy bit of cayenne pepper for an unexpected kick.
   
9. Remove the banana pieces from the frying pan and distribute them evenly onto the peanut-buttered face of bread.
   
10. Complete the sandwich by placing the honey-covered piece of bread (honey side down) on top of the banana. Now it's ready to eat!