‘Not just any old sandwich’: A lot goes into the Wizards’ PB&Js

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Christian Ross started with a blank canvas: two pieces of white bread on a beige cutting board.

He ran his spoon through the cylindrical plastic container holding the jelly multiple times until it formed a dollop, which he jiggled free onto the bread. He formed a similar dollop for the other slice. With a spreading knife, he weaved back and forth, evening the jelly until the bread had a dark purple coating.

Ross then snipped off the tip of a piping bag with peanut butter and squeezed out zigzags on one slice. Using a white towel, he wiped the spreading knife before gliding it across the peanut butter. He brought the two slices next to each other, their crusts touching, before flipping one onto the other.

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“Because diagonally cut sandwiches taste better,” Ross said, tilting the assembly before slicing it in two.

The bread was made from scratch. The peanut butter was made from scratch. The jelly – you guessed it – was made from scratch. In total, the sandwich used fewer than 10 ingredients.

Ross is the culinary director for Ability Culinary, a premium food manufacturing company for high-level athletes that handles the pregame, postgame and in-flight meals for the Washington Wizards and also cooks for the Washington Capitals.

The PB&J sandwiches, a staple meal among NBA players, have captivated chunks of the Wizards’ locker room.

“There’s love put into this sandwich,” forward Anthony Gill said. “It’s not just any old sandwich.”

Ability makes about 20 sandwiches for each game, usually picking two jelly flavors from grape, strawberry, peach, apricot, cherry and blueberry.

The sandwiches are part of an extensive game day spread of nearly 30 items. A sample menu provided by Ability included lemon-herb-roasted, pasture-raised chicken thighs, red-chili-lemon-roasted organic broccoli and caramelized organic banana bread.

PB&Js are often comfort food for basketball players, who eat them often as quick and easy fuel amid busy schedules. Ability founder Rudy Moures and his team are able to capitalize on the sandwich’s appeal while maximizing its nutritional value – a mix of slow and fast-acting carbohydrates, good quality fats and protein. It is a recurrent process in Ability’s menu, which also includes healthy versions of Taco Bell’s Crunchwraps and recovery cookies infused with nutrients.

Moures’s experience in the medical field exposed him to the effects of a poor relationship with food. Moures and his team make everything by hand. He visited small livestock and produce farms across Northern California with regenerative, organic practices and sourced grains from two hours northwest of Paris.

He has used similar vendors to feed professional athletes, building a client list that started with one MLB pitcher in 2014.

Said Moures: “We reverse engineer the joy that is associated with eating and put in a nutrition, science angle.”

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How it’s made

A small pot sat on the front burner at Ability’s Northeast Washington kitchen. Inside, a dark purple liquid simmered, with bubbles occasionally rising to the surface.

Even a smaller set of grapes such as this one usually cooks for multiple hours – low and slow – to prevent the sugars inside from burning. A usual batch has about three 18-pound cases of Concord grapes. It can also include red and green grapes – this particular pot contained two pounds.

The heat forces the grapes to shed their skins and release their juices. Rounds of straining remove any solids. Maple sugar is sometimes added for sweetness, and the liquid, once reduced, yields grape jelly.

While it cooked, Ross – who went to Gonzaga College High and is a longtime Wizards fan (Caron Butler was his favorite player) – began making the peanut butter. He grabbed a tray of lightly toasted peanuts and poured them into a food processor.

The nuts grinded for about 20 minutes, with Ross occasionally peeking in to check the consistency. He waited until the mixture became glossy and had no peanut pieces left before adding MCT oil – a healthy fat made from coconuts – to finish the process.

Ross, ironically, has a peanut allergy. It doesn’t manifest with commercial options because they’re so processed. But his batch, if eaten, leaves him with a tingling sensation, bloodshot eyes and red skin.

He still tries the sandwiches – a chef’s job is to ensure quality, after all.

Off to the side, sous chef Ben Gilthorpe made the bread. Gilthorpe was a pastry chef at high-end D.C. restaurant Jônt and is now the head of pastries and baked goods for Ability.

He started by kneading the dough. After working it into a roughly cylindrical shape, Gilthorpe laid the dough into a Pullman loaf pan. The long, rectangular casing makes square-shaped loaves. He closed it by sliding a grooved lid over the rails.

Loaves cook until their internal temperature reaches 190 degrees and then rest for 24 hours.

Luckily, Gilthorpe had an already-rested, golden-brown loaf with a near-perfect square cross section. The chef wore a white glove on his left hand, which he used to steady the loaf. He kept his right hand, holding a long, serrated knife, bare.

Even slices revealed a white interior. The bread was brushed with ghee – butter, once clarified, is a more stable fat and has nutritional advantages – and toasted on a flattop griddle. It then rested on a wire rack to prevent it from getting soggy, a canvas waiting for Ross’s assembly.

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Players’ reviews

From about age 7 until he reached the NBA, Wizards backup center Richaun Holmes had a nighttime ritual: eating a PB&J. Someone had told him that doing so would help grow his muscles.

He has since ditched the practice – “That was when I was trying to gain weight; I’m trying to keep it down now,” he said – but the 31-year-old still eats three or four of Ability’s sandwiches before each game.

“I love PB&Js,” he said.

While interviewing Holmes in mid-December, a reporter remarked how since-traded forward Patrick Baldwin Jr. – acronymically nicknamed PBJ – allegedly didn’t like the sandwiches.

“PB!” Holmes called across the Wizards’ locker room. “You don’t like the PB&Js, bro?”

“It’s not a personal favorite,” Baldwin replied, “but for branding purposes I got to like them.”

“Smart man,” Holmes said.

Baldwin isn’t alone. Justin Champagnie enjoys PB&Js but feels Moures’s are “a little bit too healthy.” Bilal Coulibaly didn’t grow up with the sandwiches in France and has yet to try them. He doesn’t like peanut butter – and joining it with jelly doesn’t increase the allure.

“I know I won’t like it,” the 20-year-old said, “but I just got to try it.”

Many who sample Ability’s fares become devotees.

“I’m a big fan of anything Rudy cooks,” said Gill, who eats one peanut butter and jelly sandwich before most games.

Why does the sandwich have such a hold?

“I think it’s something that we’re just accustomed to,” Gill said. “From a young age, playing AAU, what we eat on the road: peanut butter and jelly or McDonald’s. So peanut butter and jelly is definitely a better option. It has everything we need for the game.”

Corey Kispert echoed the praise for the sandwiches, pointing to the high-quality ingredients and the variety in jellies from game to game.

“Another reason to keep you coming back for more,” he said.

Such compliments have become commonplace in response to Ability’s work, but perhaps the most important one the company receives is unspoken.

The Wizards rarely leave any leftovers.

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