15th March 2021

A little piece from a few years ago, written when me and my husband found ourselves with the house to ourselves as the children had all left home.

 Two have boomeranged back in the meantime so, there is no more butter, except at Christmas.

Butter or Margarine

Are you a butter or margarine person? Why do you make that choice?

Is it that you love butter but it costs twice as much as margarine , so there’s no real choice, you just can’t justify having the butter?

I slurp as I lick my lips and my fingers. Butter melts into and drips from my toasted rolls. So much joy in the taste of it. I remember butter, great lumps of it sliding down potatoes, the potatoes we had with bacon and cabbage when I was a child.  I remember the farmhouse table at my grandmother's house, with a fresh cob loaf and butter cut into wedges  to be placed on the bread and eaten like that, no spreading involved. 

I take my time prolonging the happiness going on in my mouth, a happiness that actually feels as if it’s in my brain, and which travels through my body.  While I’m in my temporary Heaven, I ponder the fact that for years, while bringing up the children we chose, for reasons of cost and many mouths to feed, to buy cheap margarine.

Now, margarine is not the same thing as butter, is it? Because , isn’t it true that you wouldn’t want, nobody would want , margarine dripping down your chin or to bite into thick lumps of it in your sandwich, which means that you eat less or none at all, being as it’s not the tastiest accompaniment to your fresh bread. You wouldn’t put slabs of it, for instance, onto your toast and let it soak in and then put more on, just to feel and taste the deliciousness of it on the warm toast.

But all the children have left home now, so we can spoil ourselves, eating nearly half a pound of butter each every week. I know, that’s a lot right? It could be more, though. we have to be temperate with it. It’s hard.

My mother and my grandmother both had butter in their pantry or fridge all the time, having no time at all for the unnatural alternative and mum would bring her own with her ( only Kerrygold would do) whenever she came to visit.

It has become, for me, one of the pleasures of life, which I don’t want to give up but which I have to watch carefully because I am eating a lot more bread and new potatoes, both tasting so delicious with the added knob of butter.

Maz Green

Family minded writer of short stories, poetry a blog and other stuff gramswisewords.blogspot.com

Pork Chop/ Stir Up Sunday

24th Nov

More about food:

The Kidney

I just fancy one of those pork chops.  You know the ones,  

 thick meat on  bone-  juicy - with  kidney still attached. 

Of course, they don't sell them like that any more 

something to do with cross contamination.  

I loved that chop with kidney and generous helping of apple sauce.

 Didn't the meat taste better in those days? Or is it  the passing 

of years, as in "nothing is the same these days." Well, it isn't!

My mouth drools remembering -

 fat around fleshy pork-crispy, crunchy, crackling.

Served with mashed potatoes-

so full of butter - the taste as good as cream

        

Stir Up Sunday

It was that time of year again,

Lined up on kitchen worktop twenty pudding bowls,  empty, waiting.

 On the white, worn, pine table, holding years of family history, the tin bath,

the one passed down from mum’s grandma, that she had from her own grandmother,

the one that mum’s dad and  grandfather were  bathed in once a week -  father first, 

the one classed as vintage  now, which made mum laugh

Five eager, powdery, faces peered into the old bath filled with a mixture

of fruit, flour, tallow, eggs, breadcrumbs,  brandy and stout,

not forgetting the secret ingredient, which only mum knew and wouldn’t tell,

a delicious  treat for Christmas day - dad’s favourite.

A yeasty, musty, malt aroma filled the kitchen like a brewery.

Five little wooden spoons took turns to stir

always from east to west -  the way of the kings - each time making a wish.

Five little children asked questions - mum told them the story

of  Stir Up Sunday

Tasty

                                                                                 7th Oct 2016

My thoughts seem to revolve around food at the moment. Is it the prompts from #octpowrimo2016  do you think or am I thinking too much of my stomach now that the cold weather is upon us.
I ran this morning, not far, just over a mile in fact, wanting to get fit for my first park run this weekend. It's a 5k run, which will probably take me around 50 mins to complete - at least that's what I'm hoping. I'll let you know .

Anyway to continue with my poem for today:

I've tried an acrostic around based around the word tasty.


                                  Tasty

         When There is no butter

Crush some garlic And blend with olive oil.

                  Use thiS on bread or with salad

                      It's so Tasty that you will wonder

                              Why You have't discovered it before