Looking for: The Peanut Butter to my Jelly

As I finished the book I came to a realization everyone is looking for the “water to their chocolate,” the “peanut butter to their jelly,” or as my friends know I would say: the “beer to my cigarette.” Tita says Pedro was the water to her chocolate when they got in a fight. She was on the verge of boiling over and going crazy which is what water literally does for chocolate. Love is such a crazy thing and there are all different ways to interpret it but when it comes to romantic love I am just searching for my “water.” I think sometimes we look for the “boiling point” in our counterpart. We want someone to drive us crazy and boil us over just so he or she can calm us down and bring us to a simmer.

Tita and Pedro had this star crossed love affair that had to be hidden from others for twenty years. At times in the book I found myself believing that Pedro was being such a dick and so selfish and I believed Tita could be stupid and childish. Although this book seemed like a mystical fairytale at times, it leads me to believe that things happen for a reason. I have always believed that there are times when the stars align and lead us to where we are supposed to be. For example in the book, characters had to die; others had to come into Tita’s life just to lead her to the union of her and Pedro. After all the trials and recipes they had to go through together they managed to keep their love burning.

One thing I found interesting is this sense of “boiling over” transcended to all relationships. Tita’s mother was an evil witch who kept Tita unhappy for so long. She made Tita’s blood boil until finally she escaped and lived with the doctor. Another example is the relationship of Pedro and Rosaura. It infuriated Tita but she stood by and watched them live a lie for a few years and even watched them build a family until one day she couldn’t take it anymore.

Something I found intriguing about the book was food being a critical character in the book. Tita put her heart and soul into her food and everyone around her seemed to pick up on that. She was devastated when she was baking a cake for Rosaura’s wedding. Whether it was bad eggs or her emotions, all the guests got violently ill from eating the cake. When Tita’s mother was left paralyzed she made her soup. Because the mother refused to eat it, she in essence killed herself from the lack of nutrition. It was one less thing standing in the way of her and the love she has always longed for.