Smuggled Butter and Weed Whacker Salad

Dandelions. What are they?

My dog pees on them wherever they pop up through the sidewalks. Diligent owners of fine green lawns everywhere swear they are mortal enemies. They’re sprayed and mowed and yet one week later, manage somehow to sprout between the cracks of the garage and mailbox. HOW did that happen? Infuriating. Well, I propose a solution: We eat them, eat them like the weeds they are. And yes, I suppose, particularly by Scotts people and herbicide lovers, they are.

Specifically, how does one eat them with the especially mouth-numbingly delicious butter personally imported by my friend’s friend from France? And why butter of all things? Why not Dijon mustard, or Bordeaux, or Pierre Herme’s macarons, or even a tiny trinket of the Eiffel Tower? So strange, but it’s a strangeness I can get behind and get used to. With encrusted diamond bits of sea salt that simultaneously melts with the cloud-like curds of butter, one can understand why it was worth having to deal with the quizzical looks of customs agents.

If restaurants have taught us anything, it’s that endless breadsticks go together well with butter, which in turn accompanies endless salads, or even soups. Well, no soup for you, but a simply prepared weed salad along with home baked baguette smothered in Euro cream is hard to beat.

Before you go foraging around the backyard for some lettuce freebies, be forewarned that these dandelion were somewhere between the bitterness of kale and bitter melon. These were quite large, so if you're doing it the old-fashioned way, hunter and gatherer style, go for the smaller plants. It's not for everyone, but the price might reflect the palatability. If you're anything like me, however, you'll probably try avoid the questionably placed dandelion along the pet trafficked highways and just get them at your local grocer.