you always remember your first time

I was searching for something else in my inbox and found this in a message I wrote to Ida four years ago:

Last night there was a terrible accident with buttercream.

Which also means I made some, for the first time ever, and it's wicked awesome. When I started beating in the butter it got grainy, and then smoothed out nicely... and then dissolved into this spongey mush of buttered sugar floating in slimy eggwhite: So. Totally. Gross. I vaguely remembered a recipe that said "Keep beating! It'll smooth out!" and of course I thought that I'd be the one exception and it would never ever work for me, but the clouds parted and all of a sudden it emulsified (emulsed?) into a perfectly smooth cream in this amazing moment of culinary drama. I recommend it.

I tried to figure out how many pounds of buttercream I've made since then but when it comes to butter I go all Watership Down and can't count past four (which happens to be the number of different flavors of leftover buttercream in my freezer right now).