Butter

"Is there anything better than butter? Think it over, any time you taste something that's delicious beyond imagining and you say 'what's in this?' the answer is always going to be butter. The day there is a meteorite rushing toward Earth and we have thirty days to live, I am going to spend it eating butter. Here is my final word on the subject, you can never have too much butter."
- Julie Powell, Julie and Julia

So I just watched Julie and Julia with my parents and Mauri. I then promptly took some drugs for my cold (you know what they say; it's not the holidays unless you get sick) and came upstairs and got in bed. I quite possibly may fall asleep before actually finishing up this post. But I couldn't get that butter quote out of my head. So here I am, writing away at 12:30 in the am.

There were a lot of things I might have taken away from the film. For example, you need to stick to projects no matter how long or time-intensive they are because the sense of fulfillment you receive upon reaching a goal is indescribable. Or perhaps, no relationship is perfect or easy and neither party is really 100% to blame or 100% innocent in a dispute. Or even, I should probably try to cook more quality meals. These are all great takeaways, and I'm sure there are others as well, but that's not what I left the couch with. I left with a sense of pride and vindication that came encapsulated in the quote up above that started us off this evening.

I love butter. I will readily admit that I usually use margarine instead of real butter, but I refer to the two interchangeably. If you have a problem with that, deal with it my deepest apologies. The quote heretofore referred-to and written out is exactly how I feel about the subject with one slight amendment: I'm not going to wait for a meteorite before I start my butter consumption. I've been on the butter train for as long as I can remember. And I tell you what, no locomotive was ever so slick-down-the-track nor provided such delicious fare as the butter train.

As any of my roommates, or really anyone who has watched me eat spaghetti with butter can testify, when I say I love butter, I really mean it. On more than one occasion I have been told that my buttered noodles are gross, or disgusting. I've been told that I'm going to keel over and die whilst out running, and then, when they perform the autopsy, they will find butter lining not only the arteries in my heart but every vein and vessel in my body. I've found that nearly everyone is a critic and ascribes to the same butter-consumption school of thought whose credo seems to be, "I don't know how much butter is the correct amount, but I do know that Sam uses too much and I must therefore express this to him." I've always acknowledged that I do use a lot of butter, but that "I do what I want" and therefore don't care what anyone says about the subject. But now I have vindication. Julia Child loved butter and she was a famous cook. Julie Powell loved butter as well and a lot of people read her blog and book and saw the movie about her. They're famous so they're right. (that's how it works, right?) Since they're right, and since I agree with them, I too am right.

Not that it really matters. I would have continued my love affair with butter anyway, but now I'm justified in doing so.

But seriously, butter is awesome. I buy butter by the bucket and scoop it onto piles of steaming-hot rice with an ice cream scoop - drooling as I watch the yellow mass melt and run over every grain until it the whole meal glistens with a glorious sheen. Even in my runny-nosed, cough-riddled, sinus-headached state I can't help but smile and crave a heaping mound of mashed potatoes with a nice fat pat of butter (or two...or three) swimming around in the spoon-crafted crater in the middle. Or if not that, then perhaps a few snickerdoodles that have been prepared with liberal amounts of butter.

Butter is a rather unattractive word. Just say it to yourself out loud a few times. Here, I'll even type it out to give you an excuse so that you don't feel so silly talking to yourself.

butter. butter. butter. butter. butter. butter.

weird, right?

But the unattractiveness of the word can't detract from the glory of the substance itself. I'm reasonably certain of the fact that butter is served on most dishes in heaven.

So while it may lead to an untimely, not to mention somewhat slippery, demise, I'm okay with that. The consumption of butter is worth it. And both Julie and Julia agree with me. So there.