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.

Apparently all this order was too much for me, so I made some comfort food. Beef…and butter. You heard right, buttered beef. When I feel bad I move straight to extra crazy rich, please. I adore skirt steaks, but they can be hard to find around here, so that would be the treat. Beef lovers, prepare yourselves:

Yow! Carnivores, take a breath. Now about that butter. I mixed up three of my favorite things – butter, brown sugar, and balsamic vinegar – spread it on parchment, and rolled it up tight like a sausage.

I also ground in a healthy dose of black pepper. You can experiment with your own favorite things, but clearly mine all begin with B. The BBB went to rest in the freezer, and when the marinated skirt steaks were sizzling, I unrolled it and cut slices.

At this point Greg came by and said “is that liverwurst?” And I said something like “no, it is the greatest taste known to man, and you my friend can only hope to have some.”

One week without a kid and we’re crotchety old people, eh?

Sliced rare steak, a little garlic spinach, some buckwheat kasha on the side and oh yes, a giant glob of spicy sugar butter. On beef. I missed Josie, I did…but buttered skirt steak proved a very fine mother’s little helper. Is your child going off to camp this summer? Pour some red wine and fire up the grill. I think you’ll feel a lot better.

Balsamic Brown Sugar Butter

2 oz softened butter (about 1/2 stick)
1 1/2 tbsp light brown sugar
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
3-4 serious grindings of black pepper

In a small bowl, use a spoon to mix butter and brown sugar uniformly together. Add balsamic vinegar in about three parts, stirring to combine each time, then grind and mix in black pepper to taste.

Turn out butter onto a large square of parchment paper or plastic wrap, using spoon or spatula to make a short, thick sausage shape. Roll up tightly, jelly-roll style, twisting ends to tighten. Freeze or refrigerate until firm.

To serve, unroll butter and cut thick 1/2″ slices. Top the sizzling steak of your choice with butter and enjoy.

serves 2-4

For me this is Cracker, Butter, Honey.

Salty, creamy, sweet, crunchy. If you add frothy hot chocolate in the evening, it’s the most delicious sleep aid you can get.

I’m not sure how these little inventions begin or at what point you stop hiding and just out your secret snack – but I do know that someday you’ll turn a corner, someday when a person watches you calmly slather butter and honey over Saltines, and your reaction is “Oh yeah? Doesn’t everyone love cracker butter honey?”

Because let’s face it – your snack is the most normal thing in the world. What calls your name in the afternoon, or before lunch, or late at night?

Show me your crispy, your spicy, your caramel-coated, your sweet! What’s that snack you’ve just gotta have?