Everything Is Better With Butter
Everything my mother or grandmother cooked
was good for your soul
from the rich beef ribs
braised in a new red wine
to the lamb or pork
nurtured tenderly with fresh herbs
or even the high fat meat loaf
never served often enough.
Then, there were the pie crusts
tender and flaky only because of lard
never would soy margarine
lead us to that stage of nirvana
of melt in the mouth satisfaction and love.
The fruits canned in that new pressure cooker
were thickened with pectin and sugared with happiness
the way to a man’s heart,
said mother’s favorite cookbook,
was through sugar, until she got diabetes.
Ice creams with real cream
Steaks and chops
roast beef with a crust of crackling fat
roast pork liberally salted
the half cracked crab mayonnaise dripping fat
as does the Lobster Thermador
noodles Romanoff,
and those baked potatoes, fried potatoes, duchesse potatoes
all swimming in melted butter
green beans with butter and bacon
actually
bacon with anything
especially fried eggs gently basted with bacon grease.
Any accompaniment was better with butter,
did I say that,
from the hardening of arteries
then gangrene and loss of toes
of legs
from the madness of high blood pressure
and blindness of diabetes
the mindlessness of strokes
all aided by the wonderful salt that made every meal
taste…more.
My mother always said she was a better
architectural engineer than cook.
Post pulmonary artery graft,
I believe her.
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