This butter is from the Vermont Butter and Cheese Company. As a NECI grad I'm often accused of being partial to ingredients from Vermont. All I can say is that I was partial to Vermont long before I ever went to school there. I's still one of my favorite states. Actually, now that I think on it, I haven't been to Vermont in years. Not since the last New Year's Eve that Alex and I celebrated, cooking with Ann and Alex at the Fox Creek Inn in Chittenden, VT. Alex had gone to school with their son Alex, and when they took over what was formerly the Tulip Tree Inn and transformed into the Fox Creek, they invited us to be their guest chefs for New Year's Eve. It was a lot of fun and a beautiful place to spend the holiday.
I had long been a fan of the Vermont Butter and Cheese Company. We used their fromage blanc and mascarpone extensively for our old catering business. When we got out to Colorado it became difficult to get their products. Of course we also had access to Diane's amazing VT butter. Our daily kitchen butter became Strauss Butter and their yogurts also earned a permanent home in our kitchen. Oddly, here in Montana, the quality of the Strauss butter that we received is not quite up to what we were able to get in Colorado. I have no idea why and although we still happily receive the yogurts, we've made a change in the butter department. Even though we are now farther from VT than we were in Colorado, we are able to get the Vermont Butter and Cheese Butter. We stick to the logs of sweet butter to ensure that we're getting the freshest product available and to control the salt content ourselves. It comes in logs, wrapped in plastic to protect it from picking up unwanted odors. Truthfully, it's a little harder to deal with the logs than it is to cook with sticks or pounds. It's worth the extra bit of trouble. This butter is rich and creamy, with a slight tang and we love it. It just makes things taste better. It's dense in a way that supermarket butters rarely are. It's density seems to allow it to come to room temperature more quickly and it spreads like silk across your palate. It's a beautiful thing and I just thought I'd share it with all of you.