Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Oh butter, how I love you...

My mother has often said that Norwegian food is just a vehicle for butter.  This is very true.  If you have not encountered Norwegian food, it's very white, very bland, and dripping with butter every chance it can get.  I've often told my husband the only color in Norwegian food is if a vegetable is included in the dish.  It's true. 

I'm not sure if I come by my love of butter naturally, though my Norwegian blood, or what, but ooohhhh my, my, my.  I do love me some butter. 

About two months ago Marcus and I watched the glorious movie Julie and Julia, which I fell in love with.  I was thrilled to see that Julia Child was a lover of butter as well.  Being that I loved the movie and really want to become a better cook (or I just fell for the massive marketing push for the cookbooks, biographies, etc., of Julia Child...I'm such a sucker) I bought Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  My dear readers, I fell...in...love with this book. 

It has taken me quite a while to actually enjoy cooking.  Four years to be exact because, well, that's how long we have been married.  I started cooking due to the fact that there was no way we could afford to eat out all the time and I wanted to have healthy foods around the house.  So I started off small, visiting the Food Network website daily, watching some online videos, and stepping out to grab the cooking bull by the horns.  Now, I must say, I really enjoy it. 

I know that French food is considered the 'end all be all' of cooking and, by some snobby foodies out there, the only way to go.  By purchasing Julia Child's cookbook, I felt like this was a big step into becoming a "good cook" or something like that. 

So I went through every page...all 500 plus pages.  Oh the butter that was involved with almost EVERY dish!  DIVINE!! I told Marcus I was so excited to try some of these out.  I started off simple with a butter basted strip of sirloin that I got for our steak salads.   Granted, I understand that "butter basted" meat completely counteracts the actual act of eating a salad, but I digress.  It was fantastic.  Then I moved on to a lemon butter chicken which was like the French's version of fried chicken.  Need I say more?? 

So here I am...up to my eyeballs with glorious butter filled dinners that are so good I can hardly see straight.  I told Marcus that we would only be able to make one of these recipes once a week since they were so rich.

Now, I take that back.  We might need to make that once a month. 

On Sunday I went to get dressed for church and, wouldn't you know it, my pants didn't fit. 

MY PANTS DIDN'T FIT!!!!!  BLAST IT ALL!!!

So, for now, I bid Julia a sad good-bye until Mama can get her act together.  Or resist big portions.  Or get off my butt and actually work out.  Blerg. 

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