My name is not Paula Deen. But though I don’t share her flamboyant style, I do appreciate her unembarrassed embrace of butter. I have a similar relationship with cream. Not milk, not half-and-half. Heavy whipping cream. I add it to my coffee every morning, and I’ve progressed from just liking it to needing it. In fact, if I can’t have the real thing, I prefer no coffee at all. No non-dairy creamers for me!

I used to be more inhibited. I used to buy cream for the special occasion recipes, the holiday, once-a-year treats, and guiltily finish off anything left in the carton in a once-a-year coffee splurge. The rest of the time I was much more restrained, and my coffee was just a morning habit. Half-and-half, or even milk, did the job of diluting the robust flavor.

I’m almost a vegetarian, and I have great cholesterol numbers. Maybe that’s why I’m comfortable with my food vice.  A few years ago, I began to buy cream a little more often. I think it was about the time I turned 40. Anyway, cream moved from a once or twice a year place on my grocery list to a weekly item. Now I am never without it, and my morning coffee is rich, satisfying, decadent. It’s not just a habit, it’s my morning comfort and reason for crawling out of the bed at 5:00 AM.

I often wonder who my fellow cream addicts are. I notice there is always a generous supply of cream in the dairy case, and as I only buy one carton a week, there must be others out there regularly supporting the cream component of the dairy world. Thank you, fellow cream lovers! I probably couldn’t carry the industry on my own, even though I’m delighted to do my part.

My husband is a steak lover, and when he drinks coffee, it is without embellishment: serious black coffee, like he learned to drink in medical school. He developed a coffee habit for the caffeine kick. I drink it for the flavor, and although I know it probably sounds sacrilegious to most people, I’ll trade steak for cream any day. If I’m going to have something that impacts my cholesterol, I’ll take it in a liquid form, thank you very much. At dinner, I’ll be the one with veggies on my plate. But I’ll make up for it at breakfast, when I indulge. And I’m over the guilt.