Do you remember the first time you tasted peanut butter? I can't. It seems like the nutty taste, the warm and sticky consistency, the deep and earthy fragrance have just always been with me. Like the air I breathe and the water I drink.

OK. So peanut butter isn't as important to my existence as, say, oxygen. Still, it's a pretty regular part of my life.

Last week I had lunch with a group of girls I'm helping to mentor in photography and writing. I got there when they were finishing up their meal and was informed that they'd been trying to come up with odd combinations of food on the table. One girl showed me her two slices of cucumber, one topped with mustard, the other with peanut butter, both crowned with a grape.

I was about to make myself a peanut butter and strawberry preserve sandwich--standard fare in my house--when I was inspired to try something different. Thus was born the peanut butter and grape sandwich. Not grape jelly. Grapes. Whole grapes. Both red and green. It was surprisingly good.

I know there are lots of weirder peanut butter combinations. Peanut butter and olives is one. And then there's my mother's favorite: peanut butter, lettuce and mayonnaise. Still, peanut butter and grapes wasn't something I would have even thought to put together unless I'd been with these girls.

You never know till you try.

Talking about peanut butter innovations, researchers in Ohio have figured out how to make peanut butter more portable. PB Slices, the trade name for this invention, are packaged just like cheese slices ---- each individually wrapped in plastic and ready to place on the bread. Or nibbled in your hand. No mess. No kidding.

No fun.

I'm a get-in-there-and-get-messy kind of peanut butter eater. I love digging into the jar and coming up with a glob of the stuff on my knife. When I spread it around on the bread, it's thick like in those Annette Funicello Skippy commercials, except nowhere near as smooth and neat.

Although I don't think I'd ever become a PB Slices fan, I do applaud the ingenuity and diligence of the inventor, Stewart Kennedy. I'd be willing to bet he isn't the first one to have thought of this idea. He is the one who followed through, devoting three years of his life to the pursuit. Now, he'll be devoting all his time to the marketing and selling of PB Slices. It could take another three years. Then again, it might never catch on.

Inventors are often portrayed as a crazy. I suppose you'd have to be a little touched to dedicate a chunk of your life to creating something that the world has gone centuries without having and that people could probably survive without ever knowing they were missing anything.

I'm related, by marriage, to the person who invented lawn darts. How they were developed, marketed, sold and vilified is a whole other story, but I grew up with a respect and awe for the creative spark that results in innovation and discovery.

You never know till you try.

As I dip my spoon into a jar of Reese's creamy peanut butter, I ponder how peanut butter has become an American staple. (I usually prefer Peter Pan, which is creamier than Reese's, but this is all we have currently on hand.)

I remember the honey and peanut butter sandwiches served in the Queensbury High School cafeteria. I recall peanut butter being available at all mealtimes in college. I remember realizing I was a peanut butter snob when I stayed at a friend's house and she offered me store-brand peanut butter with my toasted bagel. I cringe when I think of my daughter's fluffernutter sandwiches, which are more fluffer than nutter.

While I always thought that George Washington Carver invented peanut butter, it turns out that Americans had already been selling ground-up peanut paste a decade before Carver started his peanut research in 1903. Still, he developed more than 300 other uses for peanuts.

Peanuts are not just an American thing, of course. The Chinese crush peanuts into creamy sauces--like my favorite appetizer, cold sesame noodles--and in Africa peanuts are ground into stews. Nowhere else has peanut butter as we know it taken such a deep hold, though.

Will peanut butter slices be the next best thing since sliced bread? Probably not in my household. But I promise to buy some as soon as they become available here.

You never know till you try.

Kay Hafner claims that a case of peanut butter and a spoon is all she'd need to survive on a deserted island. You can reach her at [email protected] to share your thoughts on peanut butter.