Butter

In my introductory post of December 6, 2011 (Following David Brinkley's Lead) I indirectly posed the question if it was possible for one to plagiarize himself. In the context of this blog, I was referring to the possibility of republishing certain posts I have made on the website ND Nation or e-mails I've written to family and friends. To date, I have not yet availed myself of that convenience, but in light of the fact that tomorrow is Thanksgiving, the one day of the year when the subject of food is brought to the fore, the time has come for self-plagiarization and for me to pull an old one out of the desk drawer.

Assuming that we all hope to display at least some modicum of etiquette at the biggest dinner of the year, I am passing on to you, my faithful blog readers, an e-mail that I sent to my three kids on March 29, 2004. That was exactly thirteen days before Easter Sunday, another big annual food fest. I called my memo The Martha Stewart Memo # 2: Butter. In those days, whenever I wrote about etiquette, I called it a Martha Stewart Memo in honor of the perfectionist ex-con celebrity herself. (2004 was the year of her incarceration for securities fraud.) In all honesty, I'm not sure how many Martha Stewart Memos I wrote, and I can't remember what Memo # 1 addressed. If I ever find it and deem it worthy, I will post it here.

What follows, then, is my e-mail from eight-plus years ago, with only a few very minor revisions. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

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It always amazes me how many people do not know how to use butter. As the Martha surrogate, and to save you from embarrassing yourselves, I am providing to you the following guidelines:

1. Never reach for the butter, unless you are the closest person at the table to the butter. Ask the closest person to pass it.

2. If someone else has asked that the butter be passed to her, but the butter has to get by you first, ask the requesting person if she minds if you help yourself first before passing it on to the requester. Don't shortstop it without permission. This rule generally applies to each thing (not just butter) which is passed at the table.

3. Check around your place at the table to see if your hostess has provided you with a butter knife. If yes, use it.

4. If there is room at your place at the table, put the butter serving plate down on the table before you slice into the butter. Unless you are an axe murderer (or you are auditioning for the Anthony Perkins role in a remake of Psycho), do not hold the butter serving plate with one hand while you slice with the other hand.

5. You only get one slice of butter, so make it a good one. It is better to err on the side of taking a little too much than it is to take more than one slice. Pity the person who has to use the butter after you've mangled the stick like Paul Bunyan going after a tree.

6. Slice straight down on the butter stick. Only a hillbilly would skim the knife over the top of the butter stick. If you insist on doing so and you are my relative, please do me the favor of forbearing until you legally change your last name.

7. Put your one slice of butter on the individual butter plate (see # 8). Do not apply it directly from the butter serving plate to your bread, or whatever else it is that you are buttering. (As used in this memo, "bread" refers to rolls, buns, croissants and muffins too.)

8. Check around your place at the table to see if the hostess has provided you with an individual butter plate. If yes, use it. If not, use your dinner plate. Do not put the bread on the table.

9. Before you apply the butter to your bread, break the bread in half with your freshly washed hands. Do not use a knife to break the bread. Do not apply the butter to unbroken bread. Exception: If the bread being passed around consists of a loaf, and a knife is supplied with the loaf, you may use the knife to cut yourself a slice.

10. When you are buttering your bread, the bread should be resting on your individual butter plate. You should not be holding the bread in the air. You are not a priest, and this is not the consecration.

11. Put enough butter on your bread to be able to taste the butter, but remember: Buttering a slice of bread is not like painting a wall. You don't have to cover every square millimeter of surface area.

12. If you have an individual butter plate (see # 8), return the butter knife to that plate, not to your dinner plate.

13. After you take each bite of bread, put the uneaten remainder back on your individual butter plate. Don't hold onto the bread as if you were worried someone might steal it. Caveat: If you are seated next to a certain relative who has been know to accuse others of stealing (and therefore may be tempted to steal your bread as a reprisal), you would be well advised to keep an eye out for your uneaten remainder.

14. Keep in mind that no matter what the butter apologists try to tell you, generally speaking butter is not all that good for your body, even if it is the renowned Hope Butter. (Bread probably isn't either.) Many dieticians suggest that you try getting used to eating bread (and other types of food) without butter. Try it that way for several meals, and if you can get used to it you will be so much better off. Enjoying bread and other food without butter is an acquired taste (like coffee or vegetables). Give it a shot and then, if you must, try using a fraction of the butter you were using before.

15. This last rule is the most important of them all, and accordingly I have named it after my father, The Marquis. The Donald J. Periolat Rule: When you are passing a stick of butter to someone, try not to jam the end of the butter stick into the recipient's extended thumb. It may be funny, but it's still uncouth and very bad form.