When my first daughter was born, my mother came to stay with me. She stayed for a week or so, after the other visitors had come and gone. She stayed and helped me with Thanksgiving dinner, a meal shared by just the three of us - mom, me and Az the Husband.
I think that is when they started the butter wars.
My mother likes butter soft. She keeps it at room temperature so that it will spread easily on bread. Az the Husband likes butter cold and hard. He wants butter to be refrigerated at all times. If it were possible to keep a tiny fridge at the dinner table and slide the butter out for only the two seconds necessary to retrieve a pat, he would be quite content.
I suppose in a different family this would mean two plates of butter, one for inside the fridge, and one left on the counter. But that would not be the way Az and my mother do things.
Instead, they began a week long contest of wills over the proper placement of the butter. My mother would clear the table after dinner and leave the butter on the counter. Az would follow along after she was done, find the butter, and put it back in the fridge. Mother would say, “But I like my butter soft!” Az would say, “What you eat isn’t butter. It’s a biological experiment.”
My mother began to hide the butter.
No one hides like my mother. When we were children and summers rolled along, Mom, who was always offended by inactivity, would hide our small television. She did not want us wasting our summers in front of the tv. Sometimes it ended up in a closet. Once she found a place for it behind her pots and pans in the cupboard. Sometimes she simply placed it in the trunk of her car and drove it to work with her. We rarely found it.
Years later, when someone gave us a television that was too big to hide, she simply cut the plug off, and repaired it at the end of summer.
So I was not surprised when she began to hide the butter. It had been too long, I think, since she had had such opportunities. After every meal, she would find a new hiding place. After every meal, Az would look for the butter to put it back in the fridge. Sometimes he found it, and sometimes he didn’t. But the more she hid it, the more she giggled about it. The more he searched for it, the more that bulldog gleam of tenacity shone in his eyes. Both my mother and my husband are very stubborn people, and this was just the sort of harmless contest that I have gradually learned to accept as a necessary part of their domestic bliss.
Once she hid it by placing it on a dining room chair and sliding the chair back under the table. He didn’t find that one.
Eventually my mother returned home, and Az became sole master of his dairy products again. I visited mom about a year later, and she took me to the mall. She was grateful that Az had let me and the baby come for a visit, even though he had to stay in town and work. She wanted to buy him a present to thank him. We wandered around the mall, looking in various stores, until she stumbled upon just the right gift.
A butter slicer.
Because, of course, a butter slicer only works when the butter is cold and hard.
23 responses so far ↓
1 Kelly @ Love Well // May 3, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I love Az the Husband (strictly in an Internet sense), and I love that he is the hero of your blog.
However, he is decidedly wrong about the butter. It shouldn’t mangle your bread before it gets to your mouth.
How does he spread it, exactly?
2 Marketing Mama // May 3, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Love the story. Love the ending. Butter must be cold - and spreadable - in my house. Which actually means it’s not butter, but a butter substitute in a tub. Country crock for us.
I think it’s hilarious how your mom hids things!
3 Veronica Mitchell // May 3, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Kelly, “mangle” is exactly the right word for what Az does to bread with his butter.
And we will not even speak of what he does to his dinner napkin.
4 chaotic joy // May 3, 2008 at 11:38 pm
This was the best post. I am totally in love with your mother now. And she is completely right about the butter too.
“she simply cut the plug off, and repaired it at the end of summer.” HA!
That is so awesome!
5 Sue // May 4, 2008 at 1:39 am
What a perfect post. Love your mom, love your husband, love the present.
I’m torn about the butter. I like it soft, but I always worry it’s going to spoil and I end up throwing it out.
6 Julie // May 4, 2008 at 7:46 am
Ha ha, great post!
And of course your mom is correct. Butter must be room temperature. I always keep mine on the counter and I’ve never had it spoil. “Biological experiment” — pffft!
7 Jolyn // May 4, 2008 at 9:14 am
My grandmother always kept her butter out on the countertop, too. Made me spoiled for real, smoothable butter. Because my husband thinks it spoils if kept out, yet doesn’t like to “spread” it hard, which means he really wants the fake stuff. Hmm. I try to compromise by putting the butter out early when I know we’re going to use it, but I usually forget. Constant butter vs. fake butter back-and-forths, in this house. So exciting.
8 Jolyn // May 4, 2008 at 9:15 am
By the way, I think four girls is wonderful.
9 andrea_jennine // May 4, 2008 at 9:29 am
I must have my butter both ways. I keep one stick on the counter for spreading on toast and such. But for pancakes, and only for pancakes, I like to pull a cold stick out of the fridge and put little pats of butter on the pancakes. I don’t like butter melting into pancakes and making them soggy. Of course, I also cut my pancakes into precise little squares before I eat them, so I’m probably just weird about pancakes. I blame my dad, who always prepared them for me that way when I was a kid.
10 Minnesotamom // May 4, 2008 at 9:53 am
I’m on the “soft butter” team. Sorry Az.
If it’s hard, I’ll cut a slice and leave it on my bread until it’s soft enough to be spreadable.
11 gretchen from lifenut // May 4, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Thanks for sharing this fun story.
Butter should be soft and spreadable.
12 Jeana // May 4, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Love it. That is too funny!
13 Kimberly // May 4, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Would Az the Husband be satisfied with one of those “butter bell” that keep the butter inverted in water to keep it cool and prevent spoilage?
Probably not, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.
I like cold, spreadable butter.
Hey…you never said where you stood on the issue?
14 Maxime // May 4, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I like my butter cold and spreadable.. But the hubs doesn’t like butter substitute, so I deal with hard butter.. My poor sandwich
15 Melanie at Beanpaste // May 4, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Yeah, I’m going to have to side with your mother on the butter issue, but mostly because one should always side with the person willing to cut off a TV power cord.
(And, for the record, “sole master of his dairy products” sounds like a dirty euphemism.)
16 edj // May 5, 2008 at 1:40 am
I’m siding with your mother on this one. But since Az is, apparently, usually the Master of the Butter in his own household (and quite properly! I mean, I guess), I’m assuming you are fine with mangled bread?
I hate hard, cold butter. I like being in the NW, where I can leave the butter in the cupboard and not have it melt into a puddle or have it get bugs on it. In Mauritania, we had to always keep it in the fridge.
17 Pieces // May 5, 2008 at 2:35 am
That is the best story.
Although Az could not be more wrong. That issue would definitely become a make or break one for me.
18 Chantelle // May 5, 2008 at 6:47 am
Hilarious.
I also fall on the soft butter side.
But at least you aren’t having to throw the butter vs margarine debate into the mix from the sound of it. People get very passionate about their spreadable (or not so spreadable, in the case of cold butter) fats.
19 Woman in a window // May 5, 2008 at 6:58 am
This, my dear, is brilliant. Wish I could play, too!
20 Sherri E. // May 5, 2008 at 8:04 am
That is a riot.
My husband is a soft butter person. I wasn’t any kind of a butter person for years because my parents reared me on disgusting margarine (sorry, cold-n-spreadable lovers). Now I am a soft butter person, too.
Can butter spoil if left out too long? We will never know, because honey, that stick of soft butter is eaten up long before any spoilage could occur.
21 Karin // May 5, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I’m with Az on this one. Oh sure, I’d love to spread warm butter on my bread and I’m sure the butter is just fine left out. But, what gets me are the crumbs of bread and the globs of jelly left on the butter. You cannot tell me that a “biological experiment” ain’t happening there!
Great post.
22 Beck // May 5, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Az is right. Unrefrigerated butter is an easy way to cause food poisoning. In fact, all I have to do to make myself feel slightly queasy is to think of a big gloppy hunk of greasy butter in someone’s cupboard. Gross. If you really want to spread grease on your bread - ick! - take out the amount of butter you’ll need for the next morning the night before and no more than that.
I also hate toast. The very idea of toast and greasy butter makes me feel sort of shuddery.
23 rebecca // May 5, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Cold & hard. This is just so wrong.
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