Back in bakery years, working all day near 64-pound butter blocks was torture, a special brand of wafting, yellow, room-temp torture. Good thing we had spreaders and baguettes, which lavishly eased the pain. Outside pesky cholesterol, there’s only one butter problem I see: it does not like you taking its picture. Yes – I know most people don’t casually pose the butter, but I’ve had reason to more than once, and every time a wash. Butter swirls through the kitchen and dominates the tongue, but snap a photo and it goes pale, improbably dull. Does it think we’ll steal its soul?  How can a robust bar of fat be such a wallflower in the lens?

My most successful butter shot was a fluke. Messing around one day with the cheese planer, it landed on a chunk of Plugra, and this is what I got. Perhaps that’s a butter-photography secret: just ask it to stand up straight.

Last week for my birthday, dear pal Lora Kolodny, whip-smart business reporter (and New York Times blogger) sent me wishes along with a poem, a work I’d never seen and one she clearly knew I’d love, a poem called Butter. I was delighted; I’ve always loved poetry, for the way it kisses language, for the chance it gives the heart, and for its ability to illustrate the familiar in a different shaft of light. Here on the page, with no props or toast, wonderful poet Connie Wanek brings the spread into view. With Ms. Wanek’s kind permission, we can finally look at butter in the proper light.

Butter

by Connie Wanek, 2000

Butter, like love,
seems common enough
yet has so many imitators.
I held a brick of it, heavy and cool,
and glimpsed what seemed like skin
beneath a corner of its wrap;
the decolletage revealed
a most attractive fat!

And most refined.
Not milk, not cream,
not even creme de la creme.
It was a delicacy which assured me
that bliss follows agitation,
that even pasture daisies
through the alchemy of four stomachs
may grace a king’s table.

We have a yellow bowl near the toaster
where summer’s butter grows
soft and sentimental.
We love it better for its weeping,
its nostalgia for buckets and churns
and deep stone wells,
for the press of a wooden butter mold
shaped like a swollen heart.

Connie Wanek has been writing poems since childhood. She is the author of two books, with a third forthcoming, and she has been the recipient of several awards, including the Willow Poetry Prize and the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize. Most recently, she was named a Witter Bynner Fellow of the Library of Congress by United States Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. She lives in the country outside Duluth, Minnesota, but often finds herself in a green tent somewhere in the Boundary Waters wilderness.

One year later, another costume party. My friend Debbie and I went as Elton John and Kiki Dee, who were on all our radios singing “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.” Debbie got to be Elton, in a purple satin jacket and glittered glasses, and I was stuck being Kiki, in my everyday culottes and knee socks. During our “performance” Debbie got carried away and sang the whole song, even the Kiki parts. Stuck with dumb stripey knee socks and no solo, I cried at that party and made everyone go home. And that’s a shame, because if you were lucky enough to have a Halloween birthday party in a cool paneled basement, with a dad who brought down pizza boxes and a mom who wasn’t sure about spreading frosting but did it anyway, the least you could do was let your guests (excluding Elton) stay for cake.

All young ones have their growing pains, I know. Fortunately, Josie never really showed us Terrible Two’s – oh, she had a few Nightmare Days of Three, and now we’re in the Testy Try-Me Teens, but none of the normal hubbub that usually accompanies two.

Simmer, on the other hand, is my problem child. At first it grew beautifully, zooming all the way to 350-plus posts before the warning signs: refusal to open files, back-talking error codes and finally, total tech meltdown. I stood firm, doling out tough love and new codes, and we did sort it out, but also learned this: much the way a kid sleeps in too-loose footie pajamas and wakes up in them too tight, Simmer has outgrown its clothes. I believe we’re headed for a redesign, something a bit bigger but not too big, just enough space for growth spurts and tantrums and a lot of good eats.

Please know that I appreciate every one of you out there, from early house blog readers to those first dropping in today. You’ve made raising a blog more fun. Some days I look at posts and think, oh dear, that was supposed to be funny and it’s sad, and that one’s sort of sad but giggly, and that, well that was just plain spastic. And then you show up anyway, and keep reading, and it occurs to me that a sort of controlled babbling sound isn’t so bad on a blog, not if people connect.

In one of my favorite movies, 1962′s The Music Man, wily Professor Harold Hill (Robert Preston) inspires a reluctant barbershop quartet by telling them “singing is just sustained…talking…” Of course he sings that line, and I sing like a dead frog, but point taken; if singing is sustained talking, blogging is just sustained typing. Some songs are better than others, but gosh darn it, people keep typing and people keep reading, and the next thing you know there’s 76 trombones and a parade down Main Street.

Yeesh. Two sentences too far but you got that, right? Wait – I am reading it again to see if I got it.

All typing and trombones aside, thank you for following me into the kitchen and on the page for lo these two years. I know you’ll join me in my birthday wish for Simmer: a redesign free of glitches and growing pains. May it emerge as a well-groomed, obedient blog trained only to dispense madeleines and serve coffee. Now why didn’t I wish that for Josie?

Oh, look! While I was yammering, someone brought in cupcakes.  These are for my dear mother-in-law, Marsha…
…who shares a September birthday with Simmer, prompting us to use her cake as co-celebrant last year, too.

What’s your favorite birthday cake? Does your family have an heirloom recipe that gets baked no matter what, or a ten-layer confection from a special bakery? Celebrate Simmer’s 2nd birthday by sharing your favorite in the comments – and again, thanks for hanging around.

And there it is.  One day you’re reading Frog and Toad, the next day they’re out for sushi, sporting better accessories than yours. This is the circle of life.

Happy, Happy Birthday to my one and only, tootsie-roll-and-cranberry-eating, one of a kind girl. We love you more than blogs can say.

Friday, 4:30 pm: In a blinding show of supermarket strength, I improbably stick to my own advice – “never buy candy you like.”

I hate Milk Duds.

Friday, 4:45 pm: making pom-poms for Josie’s “Undead Zombie Cheerleader.” First, be sure to make a frantic, yelling stop at the grocery store about two hours before said costume is necessary.

At the store, pick up one black plastic tablecloth for $1.26. At home, rip it in half (Death’s not neat), then roll up each half tightly and secure the top with rubber bands. Use a scissors to slash up each pom-pom below the rubber band, then tie with orange ribbon and pull out all the strips to “fluff” them out.

And you’re ready to go! The Undead Pep Squad never looked so good.

Saturday: baking for the annual Blintz Brunch & Bake Sale on Sunday.

But what’s this? Early birthday present! Greg & Josie thoughtfully give me a new camera, which allows me to taken even closer close-ups of coffee cake, cherry filling and wet dog noses.

Saturday evening: off with friends to see Waitiki, a live South-Seas retro cocktail music spectacular at Lawrence’s historic Liberty Hall, complete with tiki bar drinks and not one but two onstage gongs. Amazing.

A show that managed to somehow be both mellow and wild, and all broadcast live on NPR. I ordered a “Shrunken Skull” cocktail, and given the large amount of rum vs. the dangerously small size of my brain, one was enough.  Rock on, forty-one year old.

Sunday morning: Josie waits tables at the Lawrence Jewish Community Center’s annual Blintz Brunch, an enormous community-wide event, a blintz-lover’s paradise and a politician’s hand-shaking dream. There were were plenty of them on hand, too – congressmen and state senators and school board members, all there to buy chocolate babkas, kiss a few babies and eat thousands of cheese blintzes. Greg and I took our traditional posts at the Bake Sale table.

Anything look familiar?

Monday morning: Bleary-eyed and full of sugar.  Look, it’s like we shared the whole weekend – and if we had, you’d also have my cold, and be hacking your lungs out right now over hot tea and roses and birthday cards.  I think what I’d really like is a gift-wrapped pot of chicken soup.

I leave you with the cool sounds of Waitiki – have a great week, don’t eat too much leftover candy and don’t forget to vote!

Evening update: Just look what Fedex brought from my dear pal Jean today, a veritable hodgepodge of gifty delight -

Now here’s a girl who knows me: stickers for the Anglophile, “M” cards for the paper freak and a vintage pear painting, for, you know, the pear-lover that I am.  Nothing like a birthday that keeps on giving!

During construction I got another bright idea, to start a blog – amusing, since I knew as much about blogging as I did about drywall.  Sure, the early posts featured beams and framing and trim boards, but when the year wore on and the builders dragged, sugar and flour crept in.  Scones replaced doorknobs, and paint gave way to banana bread.   Once I got over the notion of sharing my kitchen with strangers, there were no strangers at all – just a few more guests at the table.  So I put out more food.

I still don’t know much about blogging.  But if you’re considering it yourself, a bit of advice:

1) photograph everything. Drive your family nuts by making them wait for dinner (“hold on – click, click – okay, no wait – click – okay, eat”)

2) make yourself the butt of every joke. For me, not a problem.

3) be sure to exploit every edible occasion, like my mother-in-law’s birthday cake, above. She had a lovely 65th, and certainly I should have shown her smiling behind candles, but…oh come on, the blog is turning one.  I needed a cake here!

Thank you for sharing this year with all of us at Simmer.  And when I say all of us I mean, you know, me.  I also mean the two decent people and one sweet dog who put up with me. It takes good humor to be laid out daily like a brunch buffet, but I assure you they’re well-fed for their trouble.  And when they’re eating well, the blog is too.  It’s been my pleasure to host you all – so stick around, grab a snack, and know you’re welcome in my kitchen.

Today is Mom’s birthday, and last year, we gave her…potato chips. Several thousand potato chips. It was a Potato Chip-of-the-Month club, and for months she happily signed for boxes – filled with bags – loaded with regional specialties like parmesan garlic, fiery jalapeno and even dill pickle-flavored chips.

We gifted her with chip heaven because what she really likes, no, requires, is potato chips. And also chocolate. Uh-huh. Potato chips…and chocolate.

Considering her status as a world-class snacker, she is a remarkably tiny person. You’d never guess she could put away three months’ worth of chips, or was known in her old office as the go-to chocolate girl. She cheerfully dispensed Hershey’s to sleepy co-workers like sugar band-aids.

Salt and chocolate and sugar. Sometimes, nothing else will do.

No avalanche of chips this year, Mom, just a virtual plate of salty and sweet…

…in honor of delighted snackers and the easy-to-please. Happy Birthday, Mom!

I decided to shock my daughter by studding the layers with bright, sugary bits.

She’s never seen me work with that much artificial color, and considered taking my temperature.

By the time I was done with jelly beans and chocolate and M & M’s and marshmallows, I had a Costco-sized sugar migraine, but hey – a herd of sixth graders bounces off the walls anyway, so who’d know the difference?

Here I am cutting layers with my special spastic duck-hand technique. I began with a river of Rice Krispies, a mountain of marshmallows and a counter full of cake pans. I made three double batches of the classic recipe – it’s on every box – threw in some additions, and finished by stacking three separate layers to feed 50 people:

Chocolate M & M – I added butter, cocoa powder, and mini M & M’s for a dark, chewy, and very melty krispie treat.

Jelly Belly – I used fruit-flavored pastel marshmallows, butter and mixed jelly beans for this confetti-sweet layer which, no shocker, was inhaled quickest by the kids.

Good Ol’ Krispies – the classic marshmallow treat forms the top. Snap! I can eat these by the dozen.

Each layer was first cut into small bars – who wants to bother with sticky knives by the lake? – and then assembled, brick by chewy brick, into a square-edged Krispie pyramid.

A few cut-out hearts to top it off, and done – a no-bake, no-fork, no-plate birthday cake that carried light and was chomped down by all. I’ve been baking and layering intricate, day-long buttercream affairs for years, and just this once, it was a treat to think outside the oven. It might not fly at every party…but at this one, it was just right. Go forth and Krispie!

“I mean, it’s just not something you would do.“

So…what, you don’t like it?

“I love it.”

And they say we can’t learn new tricks. What not-normal birthday cake dropped my jaded girl’s jaw and made a pack of sixth-graders grab like toddlers? This layered dentist’s nightmare was a true departure from my repertoire – so what is it? Come back and see the full sugar monty – it’s root canal-ready! – tomorrow.

Josie graduated from 6th grade last night, and though it’s a big deal, it’s remarkable what a big deal they make out of it these days. There has been so much eating and cooking – pizzas for a crowd, calzones for lunch, sandwiches and salads and root beer and real beer. With the warm weather, there is a constant flow of ice from my freezer. There are cookie trays and birthday cakes and baking…

…mixing and dipping and sugaring. As if a life-altering promotion to junior high isn’t enough, my sweet girl is turning twelve tomorrow. Oh, time is flying fast, but she can still be sweet – until she opens her spicy twelve-year old mouth to me with all the knowledge I couldn’t possibly have. Don’t tell her I said this – but thank goodness for spice. Life would be quite dull without it, no?

I don’t recall parties and presents after 6th grade, just a continuing struggle with frizzy hair, Sea Breeze and humiliation from older girls. This is not happening for Josie. She seems to be having a delightful time at this age, and that makes us pretty happy.

Sorry about the lack of recipes and food porn, and please forgive my momentary lapse into proud-mom blogging. But around here my kid is the girl of the hour, so today we’ll give her the last word. It’s not very clear, but I think the sound of being twelve and the itch for drama comes through. From Monday’s recital, here’s the evening that began a week of family, food, and everything nice.