Resurrecting Corn.

I have always loved corn on the cob. When I was 10 or 11, I won a family corn-eating contest with 6 ears. I remember shucking corn sitting at picnic tables with brown grocery bags beneath us, and my grandmother boiling them on the stove afterwards (and, oddly enough, the tongs she used to remove them from the boiling water). My favorite midnight snack the first few weeks of freshman year was corn on the cob, cold out of the fridge covered in salt.

Corn in Philadelphia delicious, most likely because it's fairly local. Lucky for us, we live between Jersey Sweet Corn and Lancaster Sweet Corn.

Laura and I bought some at Reading Terminal during our first shopping trip but didn’t get around to eating it until a little over a week later. It was looking a little sad. So I decided to mix up some fancy butter to liven it up.

These are only two variations and do not require measurements. The only “recipe” here involves softening the butter enough and gradually mixing in layers of flavor (thus, lots of taste testing). I used the back of a tiny spoon to mix the seasonings into the butter.

The butter on the left is a Chili Butter. It contains Chili Powder, Paprika, Cumin, Cayenne Pepper and All Seasons Salt.

The butter on the right is Parsley Parmesan Butter. We chopped fresh parsley and added a hefty amount of Parmesan. Lemon zest would have been wonderful in this!

After corn, this butter is delicious on rolls (especially multigrain ones) and melted in pasta. I’m also considering using the Chili Butter to do some sautéed vegetables later this week.