One thing that bugs me however, is the fact that NZ is home to the monopolistic dairy beast that is Fonterra and has about umpteen gazillion cows taking over the South Island, all the while roaming free and eating grass (and polluting our rivers), but the 'fresh' butter we find in the chiller often has nasty rancid overtones and discolouration to the outer layer. Based on numerous chef recommendations I have bought DANISH butter to make my beurre blanc tomorrow. I mean, carbon credits be damned and all that, I should be able to buy fabulous, sweet, boutique NZ-made butter here. My next Trade-Me purchase may well be a butter churn; not sure where the cow would live though - it would have to like thistles if it wanted to live off my backyard.
Watching Julie & Julia (again) last night, there was a lot of swooning over butter. While I am happy to cook with butter and certainly use it in my baking and for a few specific things, generally when cooking European-style, I am an olive oil liberal in the free-est (is that a word?) sense of the term. I love the flavour and the texture and the fact that it won't cause an instant coronary if I ingested a cup of it. I suppose this points to a markedly more Mediterranean style of cooking than a traditional French one. It's also great combined with manuka honey in a home made face mask. I know, I'm such a geek.
I'll let you know how the asparagus went in its butter deliciousness, all I need now are strawberries and cherries and I'll know that summer isn't far away - and they don't need any butter whatsoever! Happy eating cherubs xxx
