But if you put thin pieces of butter on the toast when it is still hot from being fresh out of the toaster then the butter melts quite easily. No fake butter in my house and no butter left out either where dust, cat hairs and cat tongues can find it.

My wife's paternal grandmother? My in-law paternal grandmother? My paternal-grandmother-in-law?

Now this might be where you wrong about the tucky stuff being bad as modern thinking says that the reason we have so many allergies is because our houses are so clean and our immune system ends up going a bit wierd

I'm very fussy about butter and I leave it out of the fridge. Even though I can (with great discipline and patience) spread cold butter, it takes too long and I like to use loads of the stuff, so it's just not going to work.

I get a salted Normandy butter (Lanquetot - if you like salted butter and can find it, try it and you'll never touch cheap butter again) that comes in a pottery pot with a plastic lid that seals over the top. It stays in the cupboard and gets replaced once a week with a new pot whether I need to or not.

In reply to:

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the reason we have so many allergies is because our houses are so clean and our immune system ends up going a bit wierd

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Thats very true.... statistics show that children sent to daycare centers (germ factorys) and not kept in the home all day are less likely to have asthma and other crap due to a stronger immune system. Did anyone see the "Ripleys Believe it or Not" episode where the guy cured his cancer by eating rancid rotting meats? Germs are our friends...

I prefer to keep myself out

What do you do about the rind?

Hmm I always hated dealing with the cold butter on toast problem as a child. My mom started to whip butter she bought from the store, and this solved that problem at the expense of her effort.

Butter that you squeezed out of a plastic bottle... that went a little too far for me.

I don't use butter at all now except for cooking. Usually, I prefer cream cheese, maybe with some Aromat, on a toasted bagel. Mmmmm.

no butter left out either where dust, cat hairs and cat tongues can find it

Ew again! That's why I keep my butter in a butter tray, it has a lid to keep the cats away!

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In looking around for this, I've found Anchor Spreadable Butter, but it claims to be softened with canola oil, not water. The other spreadable butters I've found seem to be the same

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Thats the "export" product you're seeing there on the Anchor.co.nz webpage.
They use Canola as they its trendy/fashionable to put "canola oil" in stuff as Canola is Monounsatured (like Olive Oil) but doesn't have that strong Olive Oil flavour) that would ruin the butter taste. Plus Canola help extend the shelf life of the product I think - not sure on this point. But given that most butter sold under the Anchor brand is shipped via containers (so-called "cooltainers" as opposed to refridgerated ones - aka "reefers"). I think that one of the problems with water based spreadable butter is that the water does slowly seperate/evaporate, turning it back into good old hard butter - thats why they may use Canola as well.

When they started making this spreadable butter it was only water they used (and not much mind) to mix in with the butter via a special process that cost more to make so they charged more for it.

Then they got the idea of using a process that homogenised and did stuff to the fat molecules in the butter and this made is spreadable. The exporter claimed that this was no longer butter and therefore not subject to the European quota sytem on butter imports, but the European butter makers claimed that this was not the case and the spreadable butter was therefore in fact "butter".
I can't recall the outcome of that court case, but I think the European farmers won.

And now it looks like they use Canola oil instead.

The spreadable butter we get locally is usually "fresher" and therefore has a different method of making it - I'm sure and it has water in it, the next time I'm in the local supermarket I'll read the label on the spreadable butters and see...

This BBS amazes me. I would expect expertise on how to solder SMT resistors or what music to go buy, but butter??? I love it. We've got dozens of resident butter experts.

Is there ANY topic that we don't have at least one expet (or self-annointed expert) on???

Is there ANY topic that we don't have at least one expet (or self-annointed expert) on???
Converting asf to a real format on Linux

That's why I keep my butter in a butter tray, it has a lid to keep the cats away!

Butter is far better than Parkay, but they don't sell it at Comp USA.

Sorry, I think i'm just really tired... :P

"How about I just go eat some hay? I can make things out of clay, and lay by the bay. I just may! Whaddya you say?"

yay?

Nay.

Hey!

What?

That doesn't rhyme.

I used to live in Texas...butter cannot be left out in Texas.

Then I lived in Finland...butter can live outside the fridge in Finland indefinately, arguably the whole counrty is similar to a fridge itself.

Now I live in Denver...I have seen it both ways here. I prefer the room temp butter. mmmmmmmmmm butter!!!

Yup you can tell its gettin late in here... So what about syrup? Leave it out or refrigerate? How bout soy sauce?

Now, I know I love my luke warm crusty mayonaise, thats good eatin..

Now, I know I love my luke warm crusty mayonaise, thats good eatin.

<Fast food employee on The Simpsons>
"Hey, we're out of secret sauce! Put this mayonnaise out in the sun."
</Fast food employee on The Simpsons>

> Is there ANY topic that we don't have at least one expet (or self-annointed expert) on???

Not sure I'd get medical advice here.

I leave out both syrup and soy sauce. I used to think soy hadta be in the fridge, but my girlfriend is asian and her family has always had their soy on the table....

I think i'd take medical advice from Jim...

on a whim...

As in, "He's Dead, Jim." ?

aaaand a journeyman was him!!!!

As in Hogan.... I remember his riveting post about the guys heart exploding post heart surgery and rocketing stuff across the room and onto the wall during his intern days? I think?

Ah Ha!! Found IT!!

Living in Scotland, I guess room temp is probably okay to leave butter out (usually have the thermostat set to 18C)
I wouldn't do it, though, because you can't cut soft butter, only spread it.
My preference is to have good salted butter nice and cold in the fridge. When making toast, I usually hold the knife over the toaster to heat it up then cut off slices of butter maybe just under 1mm thick and place them on the toast immediately it comes out of the toaster. The butter then melts straight into the toast with no spreading required.

Of course, you need to get a good quality, salted butter because otherwise it tastes terrible.

Edit - of course, Scotland is famed for the high proportion of heart attacks in the population. Hey ho!