Nomadic Texan

For those of you that know me well, you are aware that the sport of baseball is a passion of mine. A few weeks ago I was surfing through Twitter and Instagram, as I do almost daily. I came across a new company named HOMEPLATE Peanut Butter. I began to read about it and realized it was headquartered in Austin Texas. I had met or come in contact with several of its founding members in my past as a business executive or at local baseball games. I am not sure exactly how Clint Greenleaf, the CEO and Co-Founder and I started talking, but the company ultimately offered samples for review. What you have to understand is I am not a fan of peanut butter, my wife is though. I agreed to “sample” the peanut butter and write a review and actually thought I would just let my wife tell me her thoughts.

Card From Clint with Three Homeplate Flavors

It was probably three or four days later that I received my care package from HOMEPLATE with a nice card from Clint. “No goopy oil layer, or gritty, chalky texture, just wholesome, great tasting peanut butter.” This was the quote on their website and helped me decide to try their peanut butter. The first jar I opened was the honey flavored peanut butter and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I ate the entire jar in three or four days and remember, I really am not a peanut butter fan. What was I going to do?

The Ultimate Honey Flavored Homeplate Peanut Butter

Then I remembered that Clint sent around two dozen packets of the honey flavored peanut butter. I thought I was becoming addicted and had to pace myself, only allowing no more than three a day until they ran out also. My wife had opened the crunchy, as she is more inclined to consume peanut butter with nuts, rather than a creamy style as I eat. She told me the crunchy was excellent.

Individual Packet of Honey Flavored Homeplate Peanut Butter

After I ran out of the honey flavored, I started in on the creamy HOMEPLATE peanut butter. It was very tasty also. I guess I have been missing out for all these years. I decided I would do a little taste testing and found several “honey flavored” peanut butters at HEB and other stores, but they couldn’t hold a candle to HOMEPLATE. You can bet I will be heading to Central Market for more HOMEPLATE honey flavored peanut butter. HEB please stock this in your other stores!

The Entire Collection to Review From HOMEPLATE Peanut Butter

One of the “Founding Partners” is Danny Peoples, played at Round Rock High School and then at The University of Texas before going Pro with the Cleveland Indians organization and played six years in their minor league system, rising to AAA for two years. Another “Founding Partner” is Brooks Kieschnick who played three years with The University of Texas and won the Dick Howser trophy in 1992 and 1993, as the best college baseball player in the nation. He then spent six years in the majors, primarily with the Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers. I had the good fortune of meeting this young man through a business function. Great guy!

Three Flavors of Homeplate Peanut Butter

The other founding member I have come across is Josh Beckett, who played against my oldest son in high school and went on to help win World Series with the Florida Marlins in 2003 and then with the Boston Red Sox in 2006. He was playing right field for Spring High School in the tournament with my son’s Westwood High School team the first time I saw his arm. He caught a fly ball up against the wall and took one step and threw a line drive about 385 feet with one bounce against the fastest base runner on our team going from second to third base. The ball and the runner arrived at the same time. I was amazed.  When I watched him pitch the next day there were over 30 scouts with radar guns. His high heat was coming in around 97 miles per hour. It was unbelievable and I knew he would go professional quickly.

My overall opinion of this peanut butter with a great name, is it is a Grand Slam! I never thought I would ever like any type of peanut butter, much less eat a whole jar in just a few days. I am definitely hooked. If you are a peanut butter aficionado then by all means give HOMEPLATE a try. I guarantee you will fall head over hills.

The Hats on The Airplane

As I boarded my flight in DFW heading for Miami and eventually Ecuador, I found my self sitting beside two sisters that were lovely, intelligent and worldly traveled. They both were fair skinned and blond headed, but spoke perfect Spanish. I was puzzled to say the least. We started a conversation as I inquired about the hats one of them was holding. You know how I love hats! This was after hearing them converse in excellent Spanish. I asked them where they were headed and where they lived, etc.

One was 23 and working on her Master’s thesis in London and was studying Neurology and Photography. She was mature and we discussed her eventual plans to lecture. The other happened to go to high school in Austin and now was attending The University of Texas studying Fine Arts. I was amazed and asked them how they came to be such excellent Spanish conversationalists. They replied they were raised in Argentina, Switzerland, a few other stops and had moved on.

One particular story from Sofia and Victoria was very charming and I must relay it. It seems that one of them went to school in Austin on their first day and when the teacher came to class (a male) she kissed him on both cheeks, as is custom in Argentina. The teacher immediately drew back and stated that they would have to discuss this after class. She was shocked and did not know what she had done.

The teacher after discovering her heritage, instructed her on appropriate customs in the US and relayed to her that this was inappropriate in the US. She was very upset and made sure she didn’t perform this custom again. They also told me in Switzerland that it is customary to kiss three times on the cheeks. I thought that was a little extreme. I thoroughly enjoyed an intelligent conversation with these two young ladies for two hours and was grateful I ran into them.  They proved that all is not broken in the world!