On butter

What can one say about butter that is not self-serving rationalization for indulging in the richest food on the planet, except for the fat around a cow’s liver? I, for one, love butter, but I think that this is a relationship that is best left alone. Overindulgence in butter is the road to perdition in many ways–cholesterol, heart disease, obesity, hypertension. Yet, I won’t put oleo on my toast because using a petroleum product would be worse. You see, butter has that taste that just sucks you in and hypnotizes your taste buds and seduces your good judgement. You ever sauté garlic in butter? Maybe throw in a few over-sized shrimp, a pinch of hot red pepper and a quarter cup of white wine? You’d know if you had. Butter is a synecdoche for all of our overindulgence and overeating, and butter stands out as a symbol of our own success which may be our very undoing. In itself, there is nothing wrong with eating some butter. I’m from a dairy state, Minnesota, where the local denizens having been consuming dairy products for over a century and a half, and the only long-lasting result is extended life-spans. We have collectively stopped smoking, and although we still drink a bit and carry around an extra pound or two, we are pretty healthy in spite of the butter we consume. What would pancakes be without butter? What would chocolate frosting be without butter? Lumpy and tasteless. Take away their butter and people would stop making toast and life would cease to have meaning. Can you really eat lobster without a nice butter sauce to dip it in? Chicken fried in butter is much better than chicken fried in mystery oil. Yet butter gets a bad reputation because of all that juicy cholesterol. I often wonder if it might be less the cholesterol we consume and more our own inactivity which hurts us. So getting off the couch and into the wide open spaces is more important than skimping on the butter for our bagel.

On cinnamon toast

I was reminded of this midwestern delicacy the other day when Garrison Keillor mentioned it in one of his status updates. Not that Garrison and I are great friends or anything, but being brought up in Minnesota during roughly the same period–he has a year or two on me–we share certain experiences in common, and cinnamon toast is one of those experiences. The recipe is simple: one hungry child, two slices of bread, a little sugar, a little cinnamon, a pat of butter, and a toaster. You swirl all of that around and you end up with a happy child with butter and cinnamon breath who now will stop whining. Perhaps what I like most about cinnamon toast is that it is a simple pleasure that never stops pleasing. You can serve cinnamon toast whenever you want to, but I find that as a snack, just after school was always the best. Although, as an adult, I find that just after midnight with a glass of fresh milk is the best time. You don’t have to be a genius to make it, and it’s hard to mess up unless you get the cinnamon and some other brown spice confused in which case it’s easy to mess up. Not too much butter, not too much sugar, and not too much cinnamon seem to be the best way to describe perfect cinnamon toast. Plain toast with butter is fine, but a little cinnamon and a little sugar go a long way in jazzing up a fairly bland experience. Crying children can be made quiet by cinnamon toast. An unhappy baby will find endless hours of fun playing with cinnamon toast bits. I’m not really sure why the butter-sugar-cinnamon combination is so appealing. I get the sugar and butter–energy–but the spicy element, the cinnamon, that’s the mystery. But maybe it’s a little mystery we all crave in Minnesota, on the tundra, in the middle of January–a warm slice of cinnamon toast that has been prepared for us by someone who love us. Just surviving the Minnesota winter is enough for most of us–we understand the relative value of even the small things in life. So when making cinnamon toast, don’t worry if the little can of cinnamon is a few years old, it’ll still work. What I like is when you sprinkle the cinnamon on the butter and it turns from light brown to dark brown–the cinnamon is active. You don’t have to grind your own special for the cinnamon toast to be very good. What you want is a little flavor, not to be overwhelmed by it. Cinnamon toast, in lieu of fancier desserts, is one of life’s great pleasures that needs to excuses or explanations. Recently I had cinnamon toast and a nice cup of Spanish café con leche, and the combination was very nice–two simple pleasures mixing together in the midst of a chaotic, fractured, non-linear sort of day. Cinnamon toast is as much about nostalgia for a simpler life as it is about smell, taste, and texture as it explodes in your mouth. Yet, it is also easy to forget if you are an adult. When was the last time you sprinkled a little cinnamon and sugar on your toast? Did you ever even learn how to spell the word, “cinnamon”? Two n’s, one m? So tonight, when it’s about have past late, and my stomach is on the prowl for something good, I’m going to go back in time and make myself a couple of pieces of cinnamon toast.

On cinnamon toast

I was reminded of this midwestern delicacy the other day when Garrison Keillor mentioned it in one of his status updates. Not that Garrison and I are great friends or anything, but being brought up in Minnesota during roughly the same period–he has a year or two on me–we share certain experiences in common, and cinnamon toast is one of those experiences. The recipe is simple: one hungry child, two slices of bread, a little sugar, a little cinnamon, a pat of butter, and a toaster. You swirl all of that around and you end up with a happy child with butter and cinnamon breath who now will stop whining. Perhaps what I like most about cinnamon toast is that it is a simple pleasure that never stops pleasing. You can serve cinnamon toast whenever you want to, but I find that as a snack, just after school was always the best. Although, as an adult, I find that just after midnight with a glass of fresh milk is the best time. You don’t have to be a genius to make it, and it’s hard to mess up unless you get the cinnamon and some other brown spice confused in which case it’s easy to mess up. Not too much butter, not too much sugar, and not too much cinnamon seem to be the best way to describe perfect cinnamon toast. Plain toast with butter is fine, but a little cinnamon and a little sugar go a long way in jazzing up a fairly bland experience. Crying children can be made quiet by cinnamon toast. An unhappy baby will find endless hours of fun playing with cinnamon toast bits. I’m not really sure why the butter-sugar-cinnamon combination is so appealing. I get the sugar and butter–energy–but the spicy element, the cinnamon, that’s the mystery. But maybe it’s a little mystery we all crave in Minnesota, on the tundra, in the middle of January–a warm slice of cinnamon toast that has been prepared for us by someone who love us. Just surviving the Minnesota winter is enough for most of us–we understand the relative value of even the small things in life. So when making cinnamon toast, don’t worry if the little can of cinnamon is a few years old, it’ll still work. What I like is when you sprinkle the cinnamon on the butter and it turns from light brown to dark brown–the cinnamon is active. You don’t have to grind your own special for the cinnamon toast to be very good. What you want is a little flavor, not to be overwhelmed by it. Cinnamon toast, in lieu of fancier desserts, is one of life’s great pleasures that needs to excuses or explanations. Recently I had cinnamon toast and a nice cup of Spanish café con leche, and the combination was very nice–two simple pleasures mixing together in the midst of a chaotic, fractured, non-linear sort of day. Cinnamon toast is as much about nostalgia for a simpler life as it is about smell, taste, and texture as it explodes in your mouth. Yet, it is also easy to forget if you are an adult. When was the last time you sprinkled a little cinnamon and sugar on your toast? Did you ever even learn how to spell the word, “cinnamon”? Two n’s, one m? So tonight, when it’s about have past late, and my stomach is on the prowl for something good, I’m going to go back in time and make myself a couple of pieces of cinnamon toast.

On pickles

Read no further if you are a serious person looking to expand your mind because you will be disappointed. This post is about pickles. Normally I won’t write about as trivial as a cucumber in vinegar, but there is no use in denying it, I have been a fan my whole life. And it doesn’t matter what kind of pickle it is, I like them all: sweet, dill, spicy, garlic, kosher, beet, gherkins, hamburger slices, cold pack, bread and butter, sour, ice box. In fact, the stronger the pickle, the better. The more vinegar and spices, the better. Pickles are strong food not meant for either the light hearted or the picky eaters. I want my pickles to be strong and spicy, laced with garlic and jalapeños and cayenne peppers. I want pickles that make you think twice about a second bite. I want pickles that leave you with dragon breath so strong that even hours later, people will turn away when you speak. I want pickles that erase the taste of the beverage you are drinking. And pickles do go with just about everything except angel food cake, which I don’t eat anyway. Nothing is sadder than taken out the pickle jar and finding one, last, sad and solitary pickle floating in the brine and you have to give it to another person. Sweet pickles make a wonderful dessert if you are so inclined. If someone offers you a jar of homemade pickles, take it and run so you don’t have to share it with anyone. Pickles on burgers is an absolute necessity. People have been jailed for less. Craving pickles is not just for pregnant wives at midnight on Sunday. When you are dieting, pickles might be a part of the solution and not the problem. Pickles are not a garnish for more important food: they should have their own food category–vinegary stuff. Size is not a problem for pickles, but having a fresh jar of them might be. It is always a good idea to have an unopened jar of pickles in the pantry just in case. Where would tarter sauce be without pickles. Pickle relish is a delightful addition to any hotdog or frankfurter situation that might come at any given moment. No one should discriminate against pickles because of their size, shape, spice preference, or vinegar. The fashion of preserving pickles in crocks became anachronistic too soon. Pickles should be firm and crunchy. If pickles were offered at peace talks, all wars would be over sooner rather than later because once you share pickles with someone, you can no longer be at war with them. You probably can’t even be grumpy. I hear that pickles are a vegetable, but I’m sure this is just an ugly rumor. Although “Pickles” might be a weird name for a dog, it is certainly not the worst name either. If you are eating a pickle, and you should always eat your pickle, life cannot be all that bad, now can it?

On pickles

Read no further if you are a serious person looking to expand your mind because you will be disappointed. This post is about pickles. Normally I won’t write about as trivial as a cucumber in vinegar, but there is no use in denying it, I have been a fan my whole life. And it doesn’t matter what kind of pickle it is, I like them all: sweet, dill, spicy, garlic, kosher, beet, gherkins, hamburger slices, cold pack, bread and butter, sour, ice box. In fact, the stronger the pickle, the better. The more vinegar and spices, the better. Pickles are strong food not meant for either the light hearted or the picky eaters. I want my pickles to be strong and spicy, laced with garlic and jalapeños and cayenne peppers. I want pickles that make you think twice about a second bite. I want pickles that leave you with dragon breath so strong that even hours later, people will turn away when you speak. I want pickles that erase the taste of the beverage you are drinking. And pickles do go with just about everything except angel food cake, which I don’t eat anyway. Nothing is sadder than taken out the pickle jar and finding one, last, sad and solitary pickle floating in the brine and you have to give it to another person. Sweet pickles make a wonderful dessert if you are so inclined. If someone offers you a jar of homemade pickles, take it and run so you don’t have to share it with anyone. Pickles on burgers is an absolute necessity. People have been jailed for less. Craving pickles is not just for pregnant wives at midnight on Sunday. When you are dieting, pickles might be a part of the solution and not the problem. Pickles are not a garnish for more important food: they should have their own food category–vinegary stuff. Size is not a problem for pickles, but having a fresh jar of them might be. It is always a good idea to have an unopened jar of pickles in the pantry just in case. Where would tarter sauce be without pickles. Pickle relish is a delightful addition to any hotdog or frankfurter situation that might come at any given moment. No one should discriminate against pickles because of their size, shape, spice preference, or vinegar. The fashion of preserving pickles in crocks became anachronistic too soon. Pickles should be firm and crunchy. If pickles were offered at peace talks, all wars would be over sooner rather than later because once you share pickles with someone, you can no longer be at war with them. You probably can’t even be grumpy. I hear that pickles are a vegetable, but I’m sure this is just an ugly rumor. Although “Pickles” might be a weird name for a dog, it is certainly not the worst name either. If you are eating a pickle, and you should always eat your pickle, life cannot be all that bad, now can it?

On popcorn

Popcorn is a weird snack. People have been popping corn for ten thousand years, so it is not only weird, but also popular. Corn is the crop plant of the western world. Taken from a plant whose first cousin is Kentucky Bluegrass and turned into a monster of genetic manipulation, corn has always been an important part of agriculture and the development of human civilization. Corn is full of nutrients, but liberating those nutrients from the hard kernel has always been the trick. So we grind it, soak it, boil it and fry it, but we also pop it in fire. Human beings bring fire to the party and boil the minute bit of water inside a kernel of pop corn until it explodes and turns a little gray kernel into a beautiful white flower, petals and all. They then add a little fat and salt and, viola! we have created the ultimate snack food, appropriate for watching movies, going to football games, drinking beer, sharing with loved ones, spilling in the front seat of the car, and for breaking an old molar. And you can’t just eat one kernel of popcorn, you have to get your fingers all salty and greasy and eat way more than you ever intended to. Popcorn is one of those snacks that you eat until it’s gone. I remember popping corn with an old iron skillet and holding the top on so the popped corn did not escape as it exploded. Later we had an ancient popper in which you put the oil and corn and waited for it to pop, unplugging it in time so that it did not burn. We did have an “air” popper for awhile but the popcorn didn’t have any flavor when prepared that way. The big “revolution” in popping corn came via the microwave which revitalized the entire industry. Now people can prepare popcorn in a matter of minutes by simply “popping” a prepared bag into the microwave and punching a few buttons, which is a far cry from the ancient Incas and their clay popping pots which they used ten thousand years ago to make their popcorn. My only complaint against popcorn, other than the mess you make when you eat it, is its tendency to get stuck in one’s teeth. Brushing and flossing are often not enough to dislodge a small flake of popcorn shell stuck in one’s teeth. I don’t like cheese or other food weirdness in my popcorn, but eating a caramel popcorn ball is a satisfyingly odd experience which I’m sure makes a lot dentists a lot of money. Popcorn is already a flavor and doesn’t need much more than a little butter and a little salt to make it very good. So popcorn is the all-time champion snack food; you can have your potatoe chips, gummy bears, candy, Cheetos, but nothing takes the place of a well-popped kernel of corn.

On popcorn

Popcorn is a weird snack. People have been popping corn for ten thousand years, so it is not only weird, but also popular. Corn is the crop plant of the western world. Taken from a plant whose first cousin is Kentucky Bluegrass and turned into a monster of genetic manipulation, corn has always been an important part of agriculture and the development of human civilization. Corn is full of nutrients, but liberating those nutrients from the hard kernel has always been the trick. So we grind it, soak it, boil it and fry it, but we also pop it in fire. Human beings bring fire to the party and boil the minute bit of water inside a kernel of pop corn until it explodes and turns a little gray kernel into a beautiful white flower, petals and all. They then add a little fat and salt and, viola! we have created the ultimate snack food, appropriate for watching movies, going to football games, drinking beer, sharing with loved ones, spilling in the front seat of the car, and for breaking an old molar. And you can’t just eat one kernel of popcorn, you have to get your fingers all salty and greasy and eat way more than you ever intended to. Popcorn is one of those snacks that you eat until it’s gone. I remember popping corn with an old iron skillet and holding the top on so the popped corn did not escape as it exploded. Later we had an ancient popper in which you put the oil and corn and waited for it to pop, unplugging it in time so that it did not burn. We did have an “air” popper for awhile but the popcorn didn’t have any flavor when prepared that way. The big “revolution” in popping corn came via the microwave which revitalized the entire industry. Now people can prepare popcorn in a matter of minutes by simply “popping” a prepared bag into the microwave and punching a few buttons, which is a far cry from the ancient Incas and their clay popping pots which they used ten thousand years ago to make their popcorn. My only complaint against popcorn, other than the mess you make when you eat it, is its tendency to get stuck in one’s teeth. Brushing and flossing are often not enough to dislodge a small flake of popcorn shell stuck in one’s teeth. I don’t like cheese or other food weirdness in my popcorn, but eating a caramel popcorn ball is a satisfyingly odd experience which I’m sure makes a lot dentists a lot of money. Popcorn is already a flavor and doesn’t need much more than a little butter and a little salt to make it very good. So popcorn is the all-time champion snack food; you can have your potatoe chips, gummy bears, candy, Cheetos, but nothing takes the place of a well-popped kernel of corn.