In my life I like to experience things high/low, to stay grounded. So while I’ve been taken on culinary adventures with the best chefs in the world like René Redzepi or Kyle Connaughton, sometimes I find myself on a United flight, as I am today, ordering the chicken.

When you move between two extremes it’s not the big things that bother you, for example I’m sure this chicken wasn’t raised on scraps from Michelin star restaurants, as I was once told in New York, but the little things, like “Why is this butter as hard as a rock?”

Butter, one of the most magical of ingredients, should spread. Yet it is served in so many places at a temperature that makes you feel more like you’re carving Play-doh. So I will now give you one of my favorite travel hacks: On United they nuke the main entree too hot to eat when it arrives, but this is now to your advantage because you can open the small butter tin and put it on the scorched entree and let thermodynamics turn it from rock-hard butter-ice to supple, delicious butter.

The process takes a minute or two, just enough time to eat your salad (be careful opening the pressurized balsamic dressing!) and allow the bread to cool a bit and be palatable.

On occasion I have left the butter in the heat too long, and it liquifies, but then I just use it as a pour or dip my bread into it, imagining myself at Peter Luger’s dipping my steak into the collected deliciousness at the bottom of the dish. If you’re serving at home, softening the butter and warming plates is an easy way to elevate your game.