Not immediately.

Instead, I consulted Odessa, my personal oracle for kitchen sanity. “Girl,” she texted back, “toss it. Salmonella is not part of the holiday menu.” And just like that, my discomfort found its first ally.

Braden didn’t take it seriously. When I brought up my concerns, he smiled, unfazed. “Grandma lived to be 98,” he said. “You think butter’s what’s gonna kill us?”

But something about it gnawed at me—not just the butter, but how casually he dismissed my discomfort.

Then came the Facebook posts. Clarissa—his sister, expert in passive-aggression—started dropping cryptic notes online: “Some people just don’t understand tradition.” I didn’t need a name tag to know it was about me. The butter war had gone public.

When I confronted Braden, he admitted it. “I vented to Clarissa. I just needed someone to talk to.”

That stung. I’d said