Hello from the Great White North! That groundhog was not joking – this winter is a doozy! This one is not a Valentine’s Day edition, but I do love butter romantically. I hope you enjoy.

Snack

The other week, I visited a Brooklyn culinary destination you won’t find on any Top 10 Restaurant lists – Ikea: the land of the Swedish meatball//lingonberry soda//chocolate layer cake trifecta worthy of a last meal on Earth. In case you forgot, as I did, that the original house of Scandi cuisine is unmatched in its prowess, this is a reminder that not only is there one located right here in the five boroughs, but it is somehow also untouched by inflation??? A hearty plate of meatballs, mashed potatoes, lingonberry jam and peas, along with an ice cold drink and dessert, is one of the best bangs I’ve gotten for my buck in recent memory.

After I downed my Swedish feast, I perused, exhausted, the cavernous halls of donut-shaped lamps, offensively-bright patterned rugs and staged bedrooms of moody teenagers. Resisting the urge to pause for a nap in the bed of the parents-of-the-moody-teen’s bedroom, I made it to the gaping basement (is it the basement? The entire store feels like a basement.) of kitchen appliances. Between the spatulas and cutting boards and dinnerware sets sat an unassuming $6 object that would change the entire course of my life.

I brought my little glass butter dish home and, after a quick rinse, it was ready to do its simple yet completely essential job. I filled it with a hunk of unsalted Kerrygold and, ever since, have had access to perfectly spreadable room temperature butter at any time of day. Despite the USDA’s recommendation to only leave butter out for a day or two at a time, I kept my butter on one of my three precious square feet of counter space for about a week until it was entirely consumed. A Kerrygold brick used to take me a good two or three weeks to finish, if you don’t count baking projects, so this nifty little contraption has increased my butter intake and, thereby, my happiness, by about 200%.

Not only am I now ingesting fewer of those pesky PFAs they found in the butter’s wrapping (no one is safe), but I no longer have to scrape at my poor toast until it’s a butchered corpse in order to butter it. Combinations that before would have required microwaving in one second intervals until the perfect creamy consistency was (almost never) achieved, like radishes with butter or a baguette slathered in butter and topped with anchovies, are now easily within reach. How I lived without this is a complete mystery.

For my next trick, I’ll be experimenting with filling my butter dish with half salted and half unsalted butter so I can access both at a moment’s notice. There is a chance that this will lead to confusion and that two separate butter dishes will become necessary, in which case, I will say goodbye to any counter space at all and hello to buttered toast for every meal.

Slay

Sorry for the vibe switch, but it’s getting pretty bleak out there. I was one of those people who, in the face of the bleakness, deleted the New York Times app from my phone, unsubscribed from their newsletters and stopped listening to news podcasts in order to save myself from bleakness overload and preserve the sliver of mental wellness I still have. I soon found that being uninformed about big news stories did, in fact, curb some of the stress I always felt when reading said big news stories, but that I also missed knowing about what was going on.

In recent weeks, I’ve turned to local news in the places I live and care about, namely Gothamist in NYC and the MV Times on Martha’s Vineyard. Consuming stories at the micro level has led me to tidbits of news reminiscent of the stuff I would hear about during times of peace (like this one, about a baby that was just born on the W train?!) that raise my blood pressure to a healthier degree (imagining giving birth on the W train) than reading about the terrifying macro-level stuff.

Of course, national horrors still slither their way into cities and communities, but reading about their effects on the world around me — as opposed to the entire world— distills them in a way I can more easily digest. And, of course, there’s the odd double bald eagle sighting to lift the spirits.

Thanks for reading! Until next time.

Xoxo, Alice