Peanut butter.

I'm really trying hard NOT to complain, but...

When we left Hungary ten years ago, peanut butter was readily available in Tesco. Fast forward ten years and I can't find the stuff anywhere. We found one lonely small jar of peanut butter in the foreign foods section of Cora, but after that...nincs, nada, zilch, zero, none.

It never fails the one thing you can't have WILL BE the one thing that you crave beyond all reason and sanity. This is definitely relatable to the rest of my life. It's probably, although not certainly, a human universal. If no one else has coined it, it is now and forever to be known as Dan's First Law of the Human Condition.

I have spent every weekend for that last month prowling Tescos and Coras and Auchans with a single minded determination to find peanut butter. I literally drove for six hours last Saturday looking for peanut butter in Tescos and Coras and Auchans all over Budapest and the eastern suburbs. Alas, it was to no avail. I have been defeated in my quest to purchase more peanut butter. I have given up.

However, I have discovered that I can find peanuts. Using the Internet and a submersible blender I managed to cobble together a reasonably tasty alternative. Thank you Alton Brown. The first attempt was admittedly a bit messy. Half ground peanut flakes exploded out of the container I was using showering me and the counter and most of the kitchen in chopped peanuts. But after a little inventive engineering (thank God for plastic wrap), I managed to make a reasonably peanut butter-like spread.

It is definitely not creamy peanut butter. It is chunky and a bit grainy, but it will spread on bread and it isn't Nutella. Now if I can just find a reasonably priced heavy duty food processor, I will be in business.