2022, Food, Gatherings, News, Uncategorized

Butter Board?

79 Comments

I don’t consider myself a trendy person although I do like to think that I at least pay attention to what’s going on in the world.

A few years ago when charcuterie, although not a new concept, became a big deal, I noted it.  I’ve never served a charcuterie board; I don’t have a good reason, just never got around to it.  (Aside: I DO have a stamp set of a board with all the normal charcuterie inclusions – meats, cheese, olives, tomatoes, etc.) 

Now I see that “butter boards” are all the rage.  At first I thought butter boards were an assortment of butters, which seemed a little weird but now that I’ve read a few articles, I understand the concept.  You start with a board, spread soft butter lavishly all over it and then add various seasonings.  Salt, lemon zest, garlic, red onion, various spices, greens, even honey – you name it, there is probably already a recipe out there for it.  You serve these butter boards with bread and there are lots of opinions about that as well.

They look fun but I don’t know if I’ll get around to serving it.  In my circles I envision spending more time explaining it to people than I would eating it!

What would you like on your butter board?  Will you miss charcuterie?

79 thoughts on “Butter Board?”

  1. I appreciate good butter and good bread but a butter board, as pictured above, looks disgusting, messy and wasteful. Even really good butter is basically one note. At least a cheese board would encompass variety.

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    1. I was thinking about the leftovers as well. Most dishes you can dump the leftovers into a Tupperware but I’m not sure putting the butter with all of the stuff on it into a Tupperware would be very useful. Or appetizing.

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  4. I’m inclined to agree that this doesn’t do it for me. I do like charcuterie boards. I do like a good organic butter softened with garlic added on French bread.

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  6. The first time I had charcuterie, or even heard of it, was at a trendy place in Charleston, South Carolina. First time I ever had pate as well. Have not had another one since but the word has been everywhere. I am not going to try a butter board either.

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  7. A prime example of our penchant to always find something new.

    So, do you use a butter knife to get the stuff on the bread, or sort of dip your piece of bread into it? Noooooooo…….

    What a waste of good butter! I would find some recipe to use the leftovers in, or I suppose you could melt and strain it.

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    1. Most of the videos that I’ve looked at online show people using the bread to scrape the butter mixture off the board. But I suppose there’s no reason you couldn’t put out little butter knives.

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  8. Completely OT. I have some stoneware baking pans and also an extra abelsiver pan that I’m having trouble finding good homes for. Anybody interested in any of it? They just need a good home- no compensation required!

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      1. It’s an older cast-iron model. Again, I don’t remember why I bought a second one when I already had one. If I’m remembering correctly, you actually live pretty close to me. I can drop it by if you want to email me your actual address. I’m at shelikins at hotmail.

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  9. I’ve seen articles on VegNews about creating vegan charcuterie boards, but that’s never appealed to me–even if the nut cheeses and faux meats weren’t so expensive, they’re appallingly high in sodium. Butter boards just sound disgusting, whether the butter is dairy or plant-based. I’ll stick to hummus plates.

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  10. Well, guess I’m the odd person out here. I think the butter board above looks wonderful.

    Personally, I wouldn’t put it on a board, though, but on a nice ceramic dish, I think it would be great. I recently watched a video of Jacques Peppin making such a platter in his own kitchen. Rather than looking chichi and out of my price range it looked like a rustic way of presenting some pretty basic ingredients in an uncomplicated, rustic, but attractive way. With some good bread, and a nice wine, count me in.

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      1. I’d start with unsalted, softened (but not melted) butter. Add a little fancy salt , some freshly ground pepper, diced raw onion, capers, some chopped roasted red peppers, and an assortment of herbs – probably basil, parsley, and a little fresh dill. For a more attractive presentation some edible flowers would be good. I’d serve with a warm baguette, and perhaps a ripe pear cut in wedges, a chunk or two of hard cheeses and a selection of red and white wine, and if I were flush, a nice Sauterne. I could nibble on that over good conversation for hours, and I bet I wouldn’t have to worry about left-overs.

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        4. Although now that I think about it, this might go really well with Hans’ homemade, dense, Danish rye bread. As a matter of fact, I think I might just try that tonight as a side to stuffed, roasted tomatoes.

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  12. Fresh churned butter from freshly milked cows would tempt me but then it would seem a waste to cover the taste of the butter. Or maybe put out that butter with tubs of things people could mix in like garlic, fresh sprouts, pine nuts, sun dried tomato, etc. With varied breads and specialty crackers and choice of wines for those who like it or dark and light beers and ales. Nah. Just the butter with very fresh bread.
    Clyde

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  13. <!– /* Font Definitions / @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;} / Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {margin:0in; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,sans-serif;} h1 {mso-style-priority:9; mso-style-link:”Heading 1 Char”; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; font-size:24.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,sans-serif; font-weight:bold;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {mso-style-priority:99; color:blue; text-decoration:underline;} span.Heading1Char {mso-style-name:”Heading 1 Char”; mso-style-priority:9; mso-style-link:”Heading 1″; font-family:”Calibri”,sans-serif; font-weight:bold;} span.header-title {mso-style-name:header-title;} p.name, li.name, div.name {mso-style-name:name; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,sans-serif;} p.meta, li.meta, div.meta {mso-style-name:meta; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,sans-serif;} span.title {mso-style-name:title;} MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;}

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  14. Semi on topic
    Here in Franklin, Ohio there is an endeavor to get people downtown via food trucks.
    Tonight a vendor is offering Hungarian chimney cakes.
    Another has sushi tacos.
    I have zero experience with each.
    What should I expect buying each?

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        3. It’s Wes’ standard reply to anything in a foreign language, and it’s really funny. Google the translation. He has used it in any number of responses, to date, in different languages.

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  17. On the grounds that there’s a seven hour time difference between Palomar and Minnesota ::
    Additions to yesterday’s post from your Spanish correspondent.
    I. Timisms. I think tim’s late post last night outdid even tim. Brilliantly incomprehensible, keep them coming.
    2. Names. Jane trained as an Occupational Therapist under her maiden name, Jane Moore, which she retained for work purposes throughout her 17 year National Health career. Somewhere in England, another Jane Moore trained at the same time. I forget how Jane knew this. But they were inducted into the system at roughly, maybe even exactly, the same time, with jobs at different health trusts at different places. I don’t know how, but somehow Jane vaguely knew this. Jane was in a meeting at the end of her first month, which ended up with :”well as you’re all here, I may as well hand out your payslips”.
    Yes, you know it. But I’ll tell you anyway. Jane waited politely until all the slips had been handed out. Except there was one missing, so after a second she said, “er….” It’s a bit difficult in that profession, you see. After all, you don’t do it for the money. The money is just a rather awkward formality-oh hell, you know what happened, don’t you, the other Jane Moore got paid twice that month.

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  19. And 3.
    PJ, ha, I had come to notice that you are one of the night birds. In fact, yes, you’ve previously explained that to me.
    Works of art can be more than inanimate objects – fair enough. But not one with its feet rotted off. And vehicles, no. I remember two guys discussing a Ford Anglia they’d just put yet another secondhand engine into. “What happens when you start her up? Does she (blah blah blah) or does she (blah blah)” “well when you rev her up she (blah blah blah), but she doesn’t (blah blah blah, blah blah)”. Etc. It’s just embarrassing and unbearable to listen to. Cars are things.
    And my dad, yes I know. I do rant about him all the time. But he was my hero once, and he did have his good points. He had a reputation as a good worker everywhere he went,” he makes up for the ones that don’t do ort”, (don’t do anything), was just one accolade out of many. Whatever he did, he was good at it, and he got on with it, and enjoyed it. And he set an example to all five of us, no matter what we think of him. And he paradoxically taught us to think for ourselves. And had other good points too. And yet he had tunnel vision, and was a sexual predator, bordering on abuser. Chris, my youngest sister, told me recently, he was terrified of Neil, Angus and I being gay. Well OK, those were the times, but I don’t believe it ever worried Mum. But catch me EVER taking a girl home to meet Dad, I never did, or anybody else much either.
    But listen, PJ, OK, I will, and I do, try to cut him just a bit of slack.

    This is Stewart Fenton, Trail Baboon News, El Palomar,

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  20. OT: Cats!!!!!!
    Jane and I looked this morning. No mummy cat, four kittens.
    Chelo went down around eleven. Situation unchanged.
    I went later this afternoon and no cats or kitties were anywhere to be seen. Not nowhere, yes I looked. I walked up the road and into the cement works. Ooh, it’s nice in there, I could spend years cutting stuff up and taking it to the scrap yard, keeping conveyors etc just in case I needed them, wow, I liked it. No cats to be seen of course, though there are hiding places that you’d have a job to even get to. I looked back over the wall into the field, still no cats. I walked back, made sure there was food available, and locked the gate. Jane messaged and said, Sheri will come later and shake the biscuit box, they know her.
    I have the subsequent time line on my phone. At 5.45, I texted my sister, then drove away, and didn’t look at my phone for several hours. At 5.47,Jane texted that Sheri was on her way. I didn’t read it, and I didn’t pass anyone in the one third mile up to the main road. But at 5.49 I received a photo from Jane, which Sheri had forwarded to her, of two kittens in the field I had just left, with no Sheri, no kitten, in sight. I just don’t understand how she could possibly have passed me without me seeing her, got the padlock and chain off the gate, and got those kittens stationary in the middle of the field, in four minutes. Then sent a photo, which Jane had to see before going through the process of sending it. Honestly. Somebody tell me how she did that. It’s a dead end road. She wasn’t hiding round the corner. Nothing like that.
    Anyway, still no sign of Mummy Cat, but Sheri is confident, so I am too. She’ll leave food in the cement yard for now.

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  21. When I look at a butter board, I think of traditions such as Ethiopian food, where there is a shared platter and people eat primarily with their hands. In this ethos, which comes from a culture where people are usually rather hungry, leftovers are not really a problem, because hungry people seldom have an attitude about eating off a communal platter. Present day America is a different beast. A lot of people will look at a partially consumed communal platter and have the “eeew” reaction, because they simply have little experience with actual hunger and communal eating.

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        4. When my doctor informed me some years ago that I had a worrying amount of cholesterol, he advised me to give up a number of things. Butter being one of them. My mother in law characteristically wanted to change things. If it moves, change it. If it doesn’t move, change it. No reason required. She said I could do without the other things, so then I could have butter. It’s only going to cause my heart to stop next time I’m under sedation. “It won’t hurt you,” is a typical utterance, determined more by opinion than study. I would think she still doesn’t understand that I prefer margarine, and that’s why I eat only margarine. She likes butter, therefore I like butter. What’s the point of her changing the rules if I won’t follow her decision? Deep down, she really thinks I’m strange.

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        6. One of the reasons I take this so seriously is that I bumped into my doctor in a supermarket, and he told me he needed to see me. That a doctor would even recognise one of his many, many patients, outside of the surgery, out of context, in his overworked, overstressed life, I considered remarkable. So I listened to every word he had to say.

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  22. OT Update: I have a severe migraine, a stress migrain for sure. Regarding Sandy’s insurance: finally got through to insurance company . All that gobbilty-gook was because my county case worker APPARENTLY typed the date of 8/1/22 in a box where she should have typed 9/1/22. Why could the letter have not said that? But she is on vacation. Only she can fix it. Forgive her the error. Do not blame her the vacation. Bet she went up to the Shore. But will not be resolved until she gets back. Out until next Wednesday but county staff think she will be back Monday.
    And then today got a letter from same insurance company denying $1909. 00 claim for my brain MRI. Need to talk to right person at Mayo, but she is out on vacation through next week.

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    2. Clyde, I suppose I forgive your human caseworker. I’m not sure. But there’s someone, somewhere that I don’t forgive. Someone is doing something unforgivable for things like this to happen. They cause me so much anger and guilt, that I constantly read about yet another uncaring blunder towards someone I don’t know, and don’t know how to help. Someone, somewhere, is not doing the job they are paid to do, probably starting from the top of the management chain. It all makes me so angry. And empathetic. But I just don’t know how to say it to you

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    3. Clyde, I hope, if you are prone to migraine, that you have several of the cold hats I harp on about. It’s probably difficult for a person on their own to manage them when the migraine actually strikes, that’s the problem. Jane can hold herself together long enough to grab one from the freezer if there’s no one else home. If she can remember where the freezer is. It gets more difficult when one hat is no longer cold, and she needs to get up and get another one. Luckily I am normally home and able to take care of things. I don’t know what the answer is if you’re on your own, but there may be one. Have an utterly silent mini freezer right beside your bed? With enough hats in hand that you can throw the old one on the floor, grab a new one from the very strategically placed freezer. Pick them all up as soon as you’re able and get the whole lot freezing again pronto. They really do help Jane so much.

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