Seasoned butters elevate dishes from simply buttery to utterly refined, in just a few simple steps.

Julia Child. Photo: John Dominis, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

Somewhere Julia's chuckling.

The Boston Globe reports Tuesday that the doyenne of French cuisine's Cambridge home is now occupied by a vegetarian animal-rights activist, who -- since the release of "Julie and Julia" -- has been besieged by tourists snapping photos of her home and leaving butter, yes butter, on the fence post.

"It's a bit ironic," Lisa Landsverk said of her place at Julia's kitchen.

Photo: Not Eating Out in New York

Cathy Erway has cooked an artichoke or two -- or 12 -- in two years' worth of Not Eating Out In New York. But she claims to have never cooked a pretty artichoke ... until now.

When presented with a bag of the baby variety, Erway was initially stumped as to how to make them pleasing both to the palate and the eyes, at last deciding upon an ingredient that would do both justice: butter. After steaming them, she halved the hearts and browned them in a pan of butter before sprinkling the lovely layered veggies with minced, jewel-hued nectarines, sprightly lime juice and shallots.

Success! Because, as Julia Child taught us, everything is better -- and, quite obviously, more beautiful -- with butter.

[Via Not Eating Out in New York]

A little homemade fresh butter can make the world of difference in your cooking.

Instead of having to cut butter with a knife, you can use a butter dispenser (pictured to the right). Or, better yet, why not try out this new device that creates butter ribbons? You don't even have to exert energy to spread the butter on your toast. As ridiculous as this sounds and looks, how can you not be mildly intrigued?

Fellow blog Dvice explains that all you have to do is insert a stick of butter, twist the handle, and out comes a paper-thin ribbon of butter. Another blog, Bookofjoe boasts that it can turn each stick of butter into 10 feet of butter ribbon. But, don't fret, you don't have to use it all at once. You can leave the stick of butter in the dispenser and place it in your refrigerator.

The device also works with margarine. It's dishwasher safe, and it can be purchased from Amazon for just under $15. So, if you're concerned about accidentally cutting yourself when slicing butter, this is the perfect alternative. Forget sharp knives and decorate your toast in butter ribbons!

One of the most delicious ways to serve shrimp is to lather it in garlic butter. I learned this at a very young age, when my grandfather taught me the beauty of shrimp scampi and medium rare prime rib. The moment I had both, I became a gluttonous pig, making many servers double-take with my dinner orders. (And I never had to use a "doggie bag!")

Anyhow, most classic scampi recipes ask for some sauteed garlic that gets white wine and butter added to it. But have no fear -- if you have no white wines open or available, just use red. The flavor will, of course, be a little different, but it will still be darned good -- the wine flavor just works beautifully with the sinfully perfect melted garlic butter.

I'm often surprised to realize that many of the groceries I buy can be simply made at home. I tend to presume that cottage cheese just grows on supermarket shelves, for example, or that making vanilla requires complex machinery. So while it may be more convenient to throw these items into your cart than to cultivate them in your own kitchen, try making any of these eight treats at home the next time you're feeling bold.

1. Homemade cottage cheese from Serious Eats
2. Homemade vanilla extract from Simply Recipes
3. Homemade peanut butter cups from Baking Bites
4. Homemade girl scout cookies, also from Baking Bites
5. Homemade yogurt from 101 Cookbooks
6. Homemade soy milk from Just Hungry
7. Homemade butter from The Wednesday Chef
8. Homemade soda from Mother Earth News

Make something special at home? Share the recipe!

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Your recipe calls for butter or another fat. Depending on the quantity called for, there are different times you should add it.

Flour is the basic structural ingredient. It's the starch in the flour that will, when mixed with liquid and heated in the oven, gelatinize and set when cooled. Flour also contains the proteins you need to make gluten, which is great for baking bread but not so desirable for making pie crusts. All you have to do is use a flour with a lower protein content, which generally means all purpose flour (cake flour might be too weak).

Fats are considered tenderizing agents for baked goods like cakes and pie crusts, rather than shortening agents like they would be for bread. In pie crusts, fats like oil, vegetable shortening, butter, and lard prevent gluten from getting formed in the first place by coating the flour granules, thus ensuring tenderness. Flakiness is achieved by the way you mix the dough: larger chunks of fat from less mixing make for more flakiness while more mixing and smaller fat chunks make a less flaky crust. They also add a lot of flavor, especially in the case of butter and animal fats. Lard and butter are also generally considered to have a better feel in the mouth, and lard is reputed to create a flakier crust than other fats.

Water and milk are the most common liquids, while buttermilk, eggs, and cream can also be used. Liquids function as a binding agent: they allow all of the ingredients to be evenly dissolved and incorporated. They also hydrate the the starch and protein in the flour and activate whatever leavening is being used. If you're using a liquid besides water, you're also adding fats, sugar, and acidity which is a good thing. The fats add tenderness, the adds to crust color, and the acidity makes the dough more stable and easier to roll out as well as taste better. Make sure to always use a cold liquid to keep the fat nice and cold, so it'll retain its shape/temperature and produce a flaky product.

Eggs are used for hydrating the dough, creating structure, giving color to the dough, and flavor. The whites are 90% water and the rest protein, so that aids in hydration and structure. The yolks are 50% water with the rest being mostly fat, contributing to hydration and tenderness as well as flavor and crust color.

Sugar adds sweetness and contributes the most to crust color. Ths crust turns golden brown because the sugar in the dough caramelizes as it's baked. Also, the texture of the dough can be changed by using sugar ground to different levels of fineness. For instance, powdered sugar makes a dough that is smoother, even if it doesn't taste as good as granulated.

This weekend I got it into my head that I really wanted to try some bread from my Georgian cookbook. Up til now I've pretty much stuck to vegetables and sweets, but it was high time that I made one of the delicious looking bread options. I chose the Lobiani, which is a simple bread with a kidney bean filling, because I had most of the ingredients. I only had to get sour cream.

The Lobiani was very simple to make, you'll just need plenty of space to roll the dough out (which can be a problem in my tiny kitchen). I have an extra large cutting board that I use for rolling out bread doughs. The dough is made from sour cream, eggs, butter and flour, and it's leavened by working baking soda into the dough after it's mixed. The filling is made with lots of onions and kidney beans, plus seasoning and coriander.

Let me just tell you, I will make Lobiani again! It is so good, with the mild kidney beans mixing quite nicely with the sweet onion flavor and coriander. I took a loaf over to share with my Georgian friend and he told me more than once how delicious the Lobiani was.

I did change a few things. First off, the recipe said not to leave the dough out for more than 8 hours or it'll turn sour. Of course I did (just FYI, don't fall asleep on the couch at about the time you're supposed to be starting a baking project), but I just threw the dough in the fridge overnight and let it warm up the next morning and everything was fine. I actually liked the sour taste. Also, I used canned white kidney beans because I had them. Other than that, I did everything the recipe told me to do, and everything was great. The recipe after the jump.

We see celebrities endorse products every day, and as silly as they might be (What actress actually dyes her hair on her own, rather than getting it done for her?), nothing compares to this little nugget of news. NME reports that Johnny Rotten (of Sex Pistols fame) is starring in new advertisements for a British brand of butter, Country Life. Oh, but they're careful to just call him John Lydon and stay away from his famous Rotten moniker.

Country Life says: "We don't think enough people know Country Life is the only major British butter brand and John gets the message through loud and clear." They continue, "He is seen as a great British icon. His independent views are part of his consumer appeal and his tongue-in-cheek sense of humour shines through in our TV advertising."

Even if most people get the joke, who would want their butter to be so closely linked to the word "rotten"? Maybe they're trying to reclaim the word... Who knows? Too bad there isn't a Tim Spoiled to take over when Rotten moves on.

[via Gawker]

Brioche is one of the original enriched breads. Enriched meaning that it contains lots of butter and eggs. According to Wikipedia, there was mention of brioche in print as early as the 13th century, though it's believed to be the descendant of a type of Roman bread.

The that quote usually attributed to Marie Antoinette about letting the peasants eat cake, many people think it was actually mistranslated and refers to brioche. She was saying to let the peasants eat brioche. According to Peter Reinhart, in his Bread Bakers Apprentice, there was two versions of brioche during that time in France. One of them was for the rich, which was chock full of butter, and one was for the poor, which had minimal amounts of butter. There were apparently strict rules governing who could buy which version. By saying "let them eat brioche" Marie Antoinette was saying let the poor eat the rich person's version of the bread.

Brioche is an amazingly rich, soft, flaky, delicious bread. It's kind of strange in that it contains so much butter, but it still turns out bread-like. In fact, brioche can have anywhere from 50% to 90% butter (that would be half as much butter as flour to almost as much butter as flour by weight). The most traditional and recognizable form of brioche is the brioche à tête (pictured above), but you can shape it any way you want.

Brioche makes a great brunch bread just because it's so buttery and tasty. I recently found a great formula for strawberry almond brioche from Cyril Hitz, a very well known baker. You can check out my version after the jump.

America (at least the segment of the population that reads the New York Times Dining & Wine section) has already embraced artisanal raw milk cheeses, boutique breads, bacon from pigs hand-fed on nothing but acorns.

Now, according to the lead story in the Wednesday Dining & Wine section, small-batch milk, cream and butter are the next Big Thing in refined gourmandise. In the article, It-chef Thomas Keller of Napa's French Laundry raves about butter handmade at a small Vermont creamery. "It has a different flavor profile and nuances throughout the year," he rhapsodizes. Fresh local dairy products are great, certainly - I buy pints of thick, downy cream from a nearby farm, and love nothing more than a hunk of baguette slathered with good butter, paved with sliced radishes and sprinkled with sea salt.

But my favorite part of the story had less to do with food and more to do with seventh-grade giggles: a quote from Nancy Nipples, founder of the Pike Place Market Creamery in Seattle. Full legal name: Nancy Nipples the Milkmaid.

I first spotted this recipe on Tastespotting and knew instantly that it had my name written all over it. I am a sucker for baked goods that incorporate herbs and so this one called to me (I also have a recipe for Lemon Basil cookies that I want to try). I made some adjustments to the recipe. It didn't come together easily, so I added several tablespoons of milk. For the first time in my life (I normally reduce the amount of sugar in things), I actually added more sugar than the recipe called for, because when I tasted the dough, it tasted like there was hardly any sugar in it at all. I was happy with the way the cookies turned out and I loved the fact that it didn't hurt the dough at all to hang out in the fridge for a full 24 hour period. Check out my adapted recipe after the jump.