10/12/2006 09:32:00 PM 
(2) 
(2) If you ask the wait staff, they will happily tell you about their suppliers.
An ingredient that at first glance could seem relatively minor, through storytelling becomes elevated, as was the case with the delicious butter which is supplied to the French Laundry, by the wonderfully named Animal Farm from Orwell, Vermont.
Animal Farm supplies 90% of its butter to Thomas Keller's restaurants Per Se and the French Laundry.
The farm makes one of the finest butters in the world and incredibly is a one- woman operation. The woman in question is Diane St Claire, who started making butter 7 years ago with the milk from one Jersey cow. Diane had no previous experience in butter making she learnt everything from Internet and books. She persuaded someone to make her a small-scale pasteurizer and got a license to go into production.
Her connection with Thomas Keller came after she approached him with a request to taste her butter. As one of the world's leading chefs, she valued his opinion, so she sent him 6lbs of her finest. Keller told her that it was the best butter he had ever tasted and wanted her to supply him with as much butter as she could produce.
Today, Diane has 6 cows and makes around 60lbs of butter a week.
Last year, Departures (American Express Platinum Card Holders magazine) wrote a story about the 10 most exquisite ingredients in the world, Animal Farm's butter was featured. The story inaccurately priced the butter at $60/lb, it's normally $15, but she was still inundated with requests.
Diane is now thinking of creating a "butter club", a subscription service, 1lb a month for 10 months for $750. She should have no problem finding takers for that.
In case you were wondering, the butter is organic.
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RE: How much different can one butter be?
No doubt the $15/lb. is justified not only by the fact that it's organic, but also by the fact that it's a hand crafted product. To find out for yourself how different homemade butter can be from commercially processed butter (doesn't "homemade" sound so much yummier than "commercially processed?"), just buy some cream at the store and put your kids to work shaking the stuff in a jar. I've done mine with my Kitchenaid and it's wonderful. You do have to be careful to rinse the butter well though or it will smell and taste like cheese within a couple of days.
Posted by Laura Robinson on 12/24/2006 02:23 PM
No doubt the $15/lb. is justified not only by the fact that it's organic, but also by the fact that it's a hand crafted product. To find out for yourself how different homemade butter can be from commercially processed butter (doesn't "homemade" sound so much yummier than "commercially processed?"), just buy some cream at the store and put your kids to work shaking the stuff in a jar. I've done mine with my Kitchenaid and it's wonderful. You do have to be careful to rinse the butter well though or it will smell and taste like cheese within a couple of days.
Posted by Laura Robinson on 12/24/2006 02:23 PM
It appears you don't have Flash installed.
I found this article interesting because butter just isn't something you think about as being profoundly different from one brand to the next. Is it the name that has helped in its success? Is it the, "Organic" nature of her product? I would be curious to know what makes it so distinguishable in it's flavor, but unfortunately, even $15 a pound is not justifiable for my butter needs.