Butter

Need I say more? Butter is a gem that I had long neglected. I didn't understand the capacity it has to push recipes to ethereal heights. I grew up a Country Crock girl with the tub full of soft grease in the fridge. Margarine always served its purposes well enough. I never would have known what I was missing until one day while talking with my friend Jaime. She made a passing comment about how she only ever uses real butter. Jaime claimed butter was one of the handful of items for which she would not use a substitute. At the time, I took her butter snobbery for a simple case of personal preference prevailing over the cultural norm.

Weeks past by and her words stuck with me. I decided to try real unadulterated butter with every intention of returning to my tub at month's end. Oh how wrong I had been! Immediately the butter delighted my taste buds and a fresh new world of possibilities opened up to me. I had been lied to all these years! Margarine does not equal butter! How could I have been deceived for so long?

I recently decided to go back to the tub in an effort to curb my butter addiction. Dreamy as it is, the real stuff clings to my hips with a remarkable tenacity. With valentines approaching, butter called again and I picked him up at the local market. Last night I heard him calling to me again from a lonely shelf in the refrigerator. I responded and mercifully rescued him from that cold box and threw 2 tablespoons of that dreamy creamy butter into the heat of my inviting frying pan. The creamy goodness of salted butter with eggs captivated my affections again.

Unbelievable as it is, I never really knew how to make the perfect scrambled eggs - not too dry or white and fluffy, just simple yellow buttery silk sheets of smooth eggs. The key is to not work them too much. Just let them soak in all that butter as you would an omelet over medium low heat. When the edges of the egg start to curl up and cook, gently push the eggs to the top of the skillet, letting the ooze run down and cook at the bottom as you tilt the pan toward you.

Yum. Yum. Yum. Hope you enjoy your butter and delicious eggs!