Publisher: Secrets of a Southern Kitchen

Showing posts with label sponsored. Show all posts Monday, May 14, 2012 My Ode to Butter "Is there anything better than butter?" That's my favorite line from one of my favorite movies--Julie & Julia--about the food blogger(Julie) who cooked and blogged her way through her foodie idol's (Julia Child) cookbook, blogging all the while. I have to say, one the best discoveries I've made in recent years is how delicious (and actually healthy) "real" butter is. You see, I was a margarine gal my whole life. I mean, we used to say "butter"--as in "put the butter on the table" or "get stick of butter out the fridge", but what we actually used was margarine--whether in stick or tub, hard or soft, it was margarine. But in recent years, whether as a result of the back to nature/green/whole foods/real food movement, or the discovery that real food without all of the chemicals and preservatives was healthier for us, or just the acknowledgement, as I tried to learn to cook more from scratch, that butter and things made with butter just taste better than those made with margarine, my husband and I use a lot more butter these days than we used to. The only drawback, if you could call it that, to using butter instead of tub margarine or spread, whatever that is, is that you have to remember to put the butter out to soften before you can use it on toast, or rolls, or even just good bread-and-butter at dinner. And I never remember. I've tried some of the "spreadable butter" products, whipped butter, and even just popping it into the microwave, but it either doesn't spread right, or it ends up melted instead of softened. Years ago when I visited my mother-in-law in the mountains of northern California for the first time, she just kept a stick of regular "hard" margarine or butter on a saucer in one of her kitchen cabinets--soft, room-temperature butter or margarine at all times. Unfortunately, here is the heat and humidity of the Deep South, if I did that, I would open my cabinet door to a puddle of melted butter, full of ants or worse, and probably with a coating of green, purple, and black fuzz, to boot. So I very interested to read about The Original Butterbell Crock by L.Tremain . It promises to "Keep Your Butter Fresh Delicious and Spreadable for up to 30 days...without refrigeration!" As a family run business, they're looking to increase familiarilty and awareness of their products. If you're on facebook, visit their facebook page... And if this looks like a product you'd like to try, for the next two days they have a special buy-2-get-1-free deal going on. I'm thinking I'd like to try one of these myself! So how about it? Are you a butter convert like me, or is margarine still your spread of choice? Until next time, good cooking, and good eating!