Mmm … butter! Anyone who says he enjoys using margarine or any of the other spreads on his fresh-baked biscuits speaks a falsehood. No substitute complements food as butter does.

        Over the summers while my husband went to college in Columbus, we went to the Ohio State Fair. One vendor offered corn-on-the-cob, still in its husk, roasted over coals. After paying him what we’d have paid for a whole dozen at a roadside produce stand, one of the workers grabbed two blistering hot ears off the grill-work and yanked the husks down to form handles. Grasping the husk-handles, he turned back to the pit and plunged the naked ears into a large kettle. As he removed them, the yellow kernels glistened. Rivulets of butter ran down the ears, dripping onto the husks.

Holding both in one hand, the man seized a stack of napkins and thrust both hands toward us. He nodded his head at a small stand holding several shakers of salt and pepper. Eyes wide at what we’d just seen, we hurried to season our corn and dig in, not wanting to miss a single droplet of the melted butter.

It only took one bite of the golden delicacy to know we’d never tasted anything as fine as those ears of corn-on-the-cob. Though taking care as we did, we ended up wearing butter smeared on our lips. With our slippery fingers working to hold onto our prizes, even the tips of our noses sported a drop or two.

Though the hot kernels singed our tongues, we gobbled away, typewriter-style. Licking the rows above and below, licking our slick fingers, licking our dripping wrists where droplets trickled toward our elbows. We didn’t stop in gratitude for our sleeveless arms, nor for my ponytail keeping my hair from disaster. We only munched across our ears, slid the make-believe return bar across, and went on to the next section, until at last, we stood slurping the remnants of the glorious butter from the emptied cob.

Somehow, that memory would not bring the sigh of satisfaction it does if those roasted ears of sweet corn had been plunged into a bucket of melted spread or sprayed with a bottle of liquified flax seed. Wouldn’t you agree?

God made cows. He made the milk we get from them. And He showed us how to skim the cream which separates from the milk. Then He gave us the know-how to churn it into butter—glorious butter! Mmm!

*** What food do you think of first when butter is mentioned? Corn-on-the-cob, as we had? Fresh bread just pulled from the oven? Tell us about your favorite way to use butter! (And if you’re one of those who only uses the “other stuff,” I guess you can share about it, too!) To leave your story, click on the words beside the date under the title of this post. Then, scroll to the bottom of the comment section to find the box with the heading, “Leave a reply.” Thank you for sharing!

** Did you guess “Butter” as the “B” word for this week? What letter would you like to see next week’s word begin with? Help me choose!