Butter

Not many writers are chefs. 

Charles Dickens had gone into such details of Christmas dinner. Amy Tan previously told a story of cooking crabs in The Joy Luck Club. Nigella Lawson's book How to Eat does not have a single photograph of food, and yet presents us with the best recipe of mayonnaise.

Asako Yuzuki's novel, Butter, turns out to be the best reading experience of mine recently. The secrets of butter and gourmet cooking could have been a reason for getting the 2025 British Book Awards. It's more than that. In the end, we don't just learn why butter is much better than margarine. Part psychological thriller, part fiction, part story of a real case of serial killer, this book relays a tasty lesson of fatphobia in Japanese culture. 

Superior-quality butter should be eaten when it's still cold and hard, as I learn from the storyteller, to truly luxuriate in its texture and aroma. I can't tell if this is really the case. I simply know that I need to finish the 452-page book within 2 weeks, because this bestseller has already been reserved by many public library users.