I've got a friend who is watching his weight and whose glance flicks like a whip when I slather a pat of butter on anything. He doesn't SAY anything, but his glance is quite a 'comment' on my decision to eat fat. He's sequeing from a 2d retirement into a global security consultancy that involves a lot of travel and lots of physical presence. Very fit. I'm hoping to bowl him over one day, when he sees me and can tell that I've made eating butter a part of a paring away of the flab that he mostly ignores on me as he flatters me with undivided attention. A heady thing, to be with a man who appears not to notice anyone else in a room. I'd like to be so glorious that others might cease wondering what he is looking at. Clearly, the man sees more in me than flab. He's one of the reasons that I sometimes am able to hang tough and avoid temptation. Just the thought of what pleasure he will feel on my behalf, to see me less cumbersome, more able to move!!!

Not that I expect that to change our friendship. Just that he's one of the folks who truly wants more for me. Nice friendship.

Peanut butter? I do mine one peanut at a time, chewing it to a yummy consistency. I'd do serious damage with a jar at a time!

Hey butter lovers... I just caught an episode of "America's Test Kitchen" on PBS, and they were doing a blind taste test on various premium butter brands.

First they explained that to be sold as "butter", butter has to be 80% butter fat as a minimum. But most are 80% as a maximum, too, because butter fat is so expensive and manufacturer's won't put in more than they have to.

Then the guy went on to talk about the difference between regular butters, and more expensive premium butters, that they use anywhere from 82 to 88% butter fat, thereby having a richer creamier taste as well as a higher price tag.

Ok then they blind taste tested 5 butters, (1 turned out to be regular, thrown in for taste comparison, and the others premium, including 1 from France) and the first place winner was Land O Lakes Ultra Creamy Unsalted (85% fat). They commented that it costs roughly twice the price of regular butter, but i thought all us butter lovers would like to know that *possibly* one of the better tasting butters around is a brand we can find in our local grocery stores. I don't know how widely carried the Ultra Creamy is, I haven't looked for it yet.
Hope it's findable.

Anyone familiar with it?

MizKitty, did they test the Kerry Irish butter, and if so, how did that one rank? I get it at Costco for a relatively decent price, and it's quite creamy -- but I think Land-o-lakes might be cheaper, so if it beat the Kerry, I'll try switching brands.

I seriously never knew that American butter was generally so inferior until a friend from abroad confessed that every time she went home, she brought butter back with her so she wouldn't have to buy any here! How funny is that?

Got to try this one. I'm still liking (and licking) Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter (salted); wonder what its percentage of fat might be. Anyone know?

I'm not having butter every day now. Just use it on hot vegies, to flavor them. Using more oil to cook with, butter afterward. It is something that came from Julia Child's writing about what she learned in France. Butter is a flavoring. Yummers!

Ah, found this review on Kerrygold: Butterfat is 80% minimum? Might still have to track down the Land O'Lakes Ultracreamy (85% fat) just to taste it.

I'm with you on that, Zer. Kerrygold has opened my eyes to a world of better butter -- but now that you've tracked down the facts on Kerrygold and revealed Land O'Lakes to be the fattier option, you know I'm all over it!

Yes, Kerrygold was rated. The tv show just showed the results of the unsalted competition....
But here's a page I found linked from the PBS site that reviews the top 5 butters evaluated in each category, and how the test was done. (it's a pdf file)
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/ima...D04_FatWars.pdf

Interestingly, the show host made an awful face upon tasting the Plugra butter and thought it was rancid. That's supposed to be a brand popular with chefs.

Also, the expert said that "cultured" butter is supposed to nostalgically taste like butter in our grand parents or parents day did, when it was left to sit out at room temperature and really was a little rancid. He thought that's what the show host was tasting, but when the brown bags hiding the boxes were removed, even he was surpised that the host wasn't making a face over the intentionally rancid tasting Organic Valley cultured butter, but was in fact tasting the Plugra.

I've tried Kerrygold's unsalted butter and find it not to my taste. Odd, because I fell in love with unsalted butter curls in Paris and still cherish the memory of that taste mingled with memories of croissant - well, it's a heavenly combination. I've tried Plugras. Like its taste, just find the block a little unwieldy; have to chop the block to fit into my glass butterdish. Kerrygold fits just fine.

Rancid butter? Ah, a friend used to leave her butter sitting out just to get that tang to it when she baked her "plain cake" that was a mindblowing pound cake. The butter gave it real flavor, in addition to the vanilla she used. I'm sure she was reaching for the tang that rancid butter from days before refrigeration gave to cakes she recalled enjoying back home in Arkansas. Yummy!

Paris? Ohhh I wish. When were you there?

I was 16 and we lived in Germany and my dad was driving to a meeting in Paris, so I was on my own for a full day at 16 and it was a day that still is fresh in my mind. I did not have much cash, so I was not buying stuff, just walking in a pink gingham dress and pink flats and big BIG eyes drinking it all in. I must have weighed about 170# (I'm guessing) as I walked all day and did not pause often. My theory was to look as if I knew where I was going, so to avoid being targeted as a foreigner. I had a fine day, only once being so pestered that I marched straight for a gend'arme directing traffic in the center of a roundabout (not a lot of cars, else I'm sure I'd have kept to the sidewalk). I was being pestered by a man who followed behind me commenting in a way that made me wary, asking me to walk with him into a park that I knew was not a really good place to walk, so I veered off and marched straight to the gend'arme and he made a grand bow to me, taking off his cap and sweeping his cape, all very grand. As I glanced back, the creep was nowhere to be seen, so I grinned at the dashing young copper-haired cop with a beautiful handlebar moustache (also copper) and marched on!

It was a beautiful day. I later found my way to the mosque and a slew of gend'armes behind barricades who were clearly NOT expecting a teenager in pink gingham in their midst. They told me the mosque was closed and waved me off. It was 1961 and a time of unrest in France's colonies, so the mosque must have been expecting some trouble. Anyway, I did not visit it that day but on another visit, with my mother - not as comfy in Paris as I was and not much fun to travel with, as she cursed a man in German for daring to offer to take our pix. A scam? Sure. But not worth acting hostile or swearing in German! German, if you can believe that. She's from Ohio, as I am, and she acted weird, using German on a man old enough to remember German occupation in WW2, which I pointed out to her as we walked on past the man. She and I did a lot of museums and ordinary tourist stuff. Bo-o-oring.

So my one day on my own at 16 was the best memory of Paris I had. Sigh.

Still as fresh today as ever. Me, walking easily in pink gingham! All day long. Later that night, my dad and I were taken to the Folies Bergere and to Les Halles for onion soup gratinee among burly butchers in bloody aprons. The usual tourist stuff, arranged by some American family living in Paris. I recall a daughter, but was not much interested in what they offered - not after the day that I'd had on my own. The women in Folies Bergere looked as bored as I was. The onion soup was delish. The next morning my dad and I drove back to Germany. I think it was a full day's drive. Oh, and he walked me a bit up and down the Champs Elysee that I'd been tromping all day long, saying to me "this is the champs (he said it American) eee-leee-say" - as we walked among others strolling in the night. It was quite a day. I walked. I really did.

Paris was my first experience with room service. I absolutely LOVE room service. I was made to live in hotels, to enjoy room service, as I remember it from the George V - my dad traveled first class - and from the seedier places my mother and I stayed on a later visit. I thought that I'd live in Paris, as it felt like home to me. But my sister is the one who returns again and again to Paris, to a hotel in the artsy part of Paris. She's the traveler, not I. Strange.

But this is mostly about butter. Unsalted butter curls on ice. Ah, Paris!

I love that story, Zer.

mmmmm butter

I looked in one regular grocery store for the Land O Lakes Ultra Creamy, and of course, they did not have it. But they had the Lurpak Danish, so I tried it.
Yum, it's delicious!
"Discovering" the world of premium butters may have been dangerous...! I must admit I thought butter was butter, not something I cared much about one way or the other, and I always bought the cheapest store brand. No wonder I didn't care one way or the other! What a difference there is in taste.

I hate the taste of butter...

But I used to dip my spoon in margarine and then in sugar...

It still makes me cringe!

Someone was talking about making bitter chocolate palatable by eating it with butter - and I thought of the chocolat au pain (a breakfast delight of warm bread with a bit of chocolate inside) that is so rich one does not think of adding butter to it. Buttery bread is warmly wrapped around bittersweet chocolate. Yum. But what occurs to me is that I might like bitter chocolate if I pop a couple of peanuts in to chew up with it. How about it?