By SUSAN DROMEY HEETER, Joyful Musings
Butter. Today I muse joyfully on the wonderful, timeless, forever brilliant butter. I muse joyfully on butter’s power to soothe, to comfort, to love. Indeed, butter can love as butter is love. And all things are made better with love and butter.
In Spanish, it is mantequilla, in French beurre, in Dutch, boter.
When I recently made apple crisp, I invited extra butter to my recipe. I invited so much extra butter we needed another table and extra chairs and went out and bought air mattresses. But that apple crisp was so entirely butteresque, so entirely phenomenal, the abundance simply warmed the event, the crowding of the butter allowed for a coziness, a gezellig moment, gezellig being the glorious Dutch word for cozy, intimate, snug.
All things are made better with butter – lobster, toast, saltines, apple crisp. And to skimp on butter is to skimp on life, to deny oneself the glory of taste, of creamliness, of joy. I’m stockpiling butter right now for Thanksgiving – that holiday where it is only right to have butter as important a guest as any family member or friend.
In fact, I often enjoy butter more than any conversation around the table, butter always agrees with me, leaves me satisfied and acknowledges, “Susan, you are right again and perfectly on point. Let’s have another piece of bread and, please, do spread me, ahem, very, very liberally.”
Julia Child once remarked, “With enough butter, anything is good.” I would agree wholeheartedly. No one has ever said to me, “Oh, you ought to become a cook.” But when I make my turkey on Thanksgiving, the only ingredients I use are butter and pepper. And, I must admit, my turkey could be on the covers of Bon Appetit, Butter Illustrated (swimsuit edition) and Gourmet.
Full disclosure, I grew up with margarine. And I am grateful as I now know the difference between half empty and half full. Margarine is the former; spray butter doesn’t even make it into the glass. And, yes, I know – it’s healthier, has far fewer calories, blah, blah, blah. But if today is my final day on this planet, I’d better not spend it eating low fat cheesecake, margarine or spray butter.
When Congressman Elijah Cummings, who passed on this week, passionately and poetically summarized the Michael Cohen testimony, he remarked, “We’re better than that.”
He called out incorrigible behavior, abhorrent lies and utter disdain for the rule of law and our constitution.
And in his honor, I write, “We are butter than that.”
And today, I muse joyfully on not only stockpiling more butter but running its campaign, voting out spray butter and margarine and setting out a big comfy chair for my dearest love, Butter.
Susan Dromey Heeter is a writer from Dover who recently let her hair go au natural white. Writing has been her passion since her English majoring days at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Dromey Heeter has lived in The Netherlands, Alaska and currently basks in all things New England, including the frigid winters. An avid swimmer, Dromey Heeter’s great passion is to bring back body surfing as most children have no idea how to ride waves without ridiculous boogie boards.
The opinions expressed are those of the writer. InDepthNH.org takes no position on politics, but welcomes diverse opinions.