Relationships are an important part of our lives as both adults and children. We want to encourage healthy bonding based on honesty and trust. Nothing artificial or fake. I am of course talking about a serious relationship with butter.
When I was a child, butter was a rare treat in our house. My mom bought Blue Bonnet margarine because it was cheaper and we didn’t seem to notice the difference. Especially when it was used to butter toast that was then covered with a thick layer of sugar and cinnamon. I remember the day when my little brother disappeared and we looked everywhere for him. Inside, outside, under beds and finally under the kitchen table. There he sat with a stick of butter eating it like a candy bar! He loved real butter. There he sat all greasy and smiling. Needless to say my mom was not smiling. But it made for a good story over the years. But now my palate is more developed and I can, without a doubt, tell the difference between the bonnet and the real thing.
My favorite way to enjoy butter when I was young was with my Grandma Hart. We would visit her in her little cabin in Grand Marais on the hill. There she would pull a fresh loaf of white bread from the oven and before it would cool completely we would unwrap a stick of butter, slice the bread and dip the buttered pieces into a bowl of homemade maple syrup. We would be a sticky, syrupy buttery mess but it was delicious.
She made two loaves to save one for later, but usually we ended up having them both over time.
Grandma told us the story of how she made butter as a child with a butter churn. She said we could also make butter lumps by shaking fresh milk in a jar. We tried it once at my Uncle Elmer’s farm but after shaking and shaking and shaking, we finally gave up and added Nestlé’s Quik to the milk instead. I guess making real butter is harder than it sounds.
Our neighbor, Harvey, liked to take a stick of cold butter from the fridge and slice it like cheese. My brother and I would cheer him on to cut the butter thicker and thicker, and then we would put it on saltines. We would bite into the taste of butter and crunchy crackers as my mom cringed. To this day if I am craving something salty and sweet I eat a few buttered crackers while standing at the counter. As we all know calories consumed while standing at
the counter do not count. I encourage you to toss aside those artificial toppings (I can
believe it’s not butter) and develop a healthy relationship, based in truth and honesty, with sweet creamy fresh butter!
Thou art to me
a delicious torment
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on an alpaca farm in South Haven, MN
with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North
Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys
writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of home-style recipes.
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