Imagine my surprise when the UPS truck drove away, the dog barked herself breathless, and then a soft, nutty smell permeated the house. Curious, I opened the front door only to find a greasy-looking box that looked like it had seen better days. For me? Actually, no, it was for the former occupants, but I often allow myself the illicit joys of playing finders-keepers with any mis-addressed postal deliveries that come my way, especially packages like this, redolent of some exotic yet oleaginous travels. Imagine my further surprise when I opened the box and found what appeared to be a big chunk of…fat? A lifetime’s worth of earwax? Maybe some kind of clay? I wasn’t sure how to react, but my gag mechanism was.
Took me a while to learn that I was the (proud) recipient of two pounds of raw shea butter. You know, shea butter, an ingredient currently being touted as an excellent moisturizer and therefore included in many products, much like its relieved precursor aloe vera. Shea butter is kind of cool to play with, because it melts instantly into your skin as soon as it becomes body temperature (which, where I live, doesn’t take long). So you can’t make little figurines out of it, but you can make it magically disappear. And now, instead of buying those pricey shea-butter-containing products, I just cut off a little chunk of this and toss it into the mix. Okay, it may be a little rancid on one edge, but since mine was free I can’t complain.
