use real butter

Recipe: tofu fish

Long hiatus, I know. That’s what happens when you have major surgery. Apologies for the silence. I haven’t been on the blog at all and barely looked at my email in the past week. It’s all piling up and I’m not overly concerned at the moment. Thanks for all of your notes and comments.

I was in the hospital for 5 days with all manner of nurses “caring” for me round the clock while I endured some pretty horrific pain. [Caring is in quotes because I really believe if left in the hands of some of those nurses for more than a 12 hour shift I would indeed be dead by now.] Because it was emergency surgery, I got the surgeon on-call instead of my normal surgeon. Funny how some people have an accountant or an attorney, but me? I have a surgeon. I prefer my normal surgeon, but more than that, I prefer no surgery, no staples down my belly, no incapacitating pain when I sit up or stand.

I had mentioned a while back that we were preparing for a slew of visitors. Our first visitor, my dear friend Mitch, arrived in Boulder the night I went to the ER and flew home to London while I was still in the damn hospital – but we were able to share some QT while I was hooked up to oxygen, IV, O2 monitor, catheter, morphine, etc. I managed to get home right before Jeremy had to go on travel for a very important something or other (mum’s the word still), so my aunt came to stay with me until he returned this weekend. Now my parents are visiting. If ever you wondered how I got to be so hyper and full of energy, I point you to my mom and dad.

Kaweah was confused and a little depressed while I was away, but upon my return she has been quite pleased with all of the visitors and extra attention. Plus, while Jeremy was out of town, she snuggled up next to me on the bed each night, although she nearly killed me on Thursday when she shoved her chin on my abdomen and tried to hoist herself closer.

a puppy heals you faster than any drug

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: citrus almond salad

Did you know that this here blog, Use Real Butter (urb?), was born of surgery? I had a blog I started back in 2004 by the same name and it had everything in it: personal, rants, cooking, more rants, politics, life, more rants, work, funnies, rants, photography, relationships, and rants. Use Real Butter was more a directive on how to live life rather than how to cook – but it works for both. When I found myself wanting to participate in the food blogging world, I couldn’t. I didn’t want all of my personal baggage dumped into the public arena (I still don’t). I split my blog into Siamese twins, so to speak, and this is how you are reading the public twin which retained the original name.

When I met up with Cindy (Katie and I call her Figs, and I discovered that they call me Butter, and now I wish I had named my blog Lady Deathstrike or Badass Ripchick…) we talked about blogs that suck. I mean popular blogs that we think are *yawn* boring. My own biased deduction is that the readers have no life, which would also explain why so many crappy movies and television shows have so many viewers. Then again, those readers could accuse me of having no taste.

So what makes a blog interesting enough to keep *me* coming back?

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: german roasted potato salad

With the exception of our dysfunctional ghetto neighbors to the east, the rest of our neighbors are truly wonderful people. One day as I was walking Kaweah past Marcus’ house, I asked him how their vacation was. He replied from their deck, “It was great! But it’s also nice to be home. I think that’s what a good vacation is: feels good to get away, feels great to come back home.” I would have to agree with Marcus 100%.

familiar fountains at denver international welcome us back

And it *is* good to be home because a cold spell has barreled through our region and it was down right chilly last night – near freezing. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me, to think of crisp fall days and then… TELE SEASON! But I am getting ahead of myself here. It was chilly enough that we used warm water to wash Kaweah after picking her up from Camp Crazy (doggy camp). Yes, this dog who dives paws first into freezing ice cold alpine lakes slinks away from us when we use warm water for her bath.

not everyone was thrilled to get home

**Jump for more butter**