Butter

The gentleman at the next able wanted his vegetables steamed. No butter, no margarine, no oil, with or without garlic. The pleasant waitress made two trips to the kitchen to negotiate. Fifteen minutes later, she delivered a loaf-shaped mound of unadorned steamed spinach to the table that would have satisfied Popeye. Did the man know he was dealing with a butterholic in the kitchen at Cafe 2825? Did he have any idea that we would get all the butter he rejected, soaking the broccoli, flooding the scampi, drenching the veal francaise?

Spending a week in a large refrigerator carving 900 pounds of butter into two life-size cows and the late chocolate magnate Milton Hershey is challenge enough. But then Hershey wound up too tall. And he was facing the wrong direction. And the chocolate to coat him was two days late. What now? No sweat for a pro such as veteran butter sculptor Jim Victor. He was still smiling last week as he scrunched himself cowside, putting a few final pats into place on the annual butter sculpture at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, which opened yesterday.

There is no true substitute for butter. Though we have tried for more than a century to develop a product that matches its appearance, its flavor and its culinary potential, nobody has done so. Most margarines taste as much like butter as cherry candy tastes like cherries. Pastry made with butter-flavored shortening is a pale cousin to an all-butter crust, and no low-cholesterol spread in a tub can fill a muffin's nooks and crannies with the same steam of sweet cream as the real thing.

Jeff Johnsen's unlikely "butter" shot toasted Saint Louis. Johnsen's off-balance three-pointer - barely beating the shot clock - with 1:43 left carried Utah to a 48-45 victory over Saint Louis last night in the Midwest Regional at Cleveland State University. "I saw the shot clock at the very last second," Johnsen said. "We yell 'butter!' when it goes inside 10 seconds. I heard 'butter!' and I just let it fly. And I was lucky. " Johnsen's shot from his hip gave the Utes (23-8)

Most cooks can close their eyes and imagine the sounds of butter sizzling in a saute pan. That's a nice recollection. They can also probably recall the bitter smell of that butter scorching when the heat was too high, or when it was left to sizzle unattended. Burning butter is frustrating; the time it takes to clean the pan and start over also can have a domino effect on the timing of your recipe. There's a simple way to address that problem: Use clarified butter. Butter is clarified by being melted slowly.

Most people would place butter high on a list of health-iffy foods. It's calorie-dense and almost 100 percent fat. Plus, there's strong evidence that a diet high in cholesterol and saturated fat - the kind in butter - can clog your arteries and steal years from your life. A high-fat diet also increases the risk of developing cancer. With all that in mind, American consumers have started backing away from butter. Since the mid-1980s butter use has dropped by about 10 percent. Meanwhile, the market for butter substitutes, virtually non-existent 10 years ago, has blossomed to include all sorts of buttery-tasting spreads, sprinkles and sprays.

The virtue of clarified butter is that it can withstand higher cooking temperatures than unclarified butter. That means it will not burn as easily, making it a better medium for sauteing and browning foods. Another plus is that clarified butter keeps longer than regular butter. Though some cooks might miss the buttery flavor that's lost in the clarifying process, an interesting, subtle, nutty flavor takes its place. Clarified butter is made by simply melting butter slowly so that the milk solids sink to the bottom of the pan in the form of a residue.

Dear Polly: Can you tell me how to make whipped butter like the butter they serve in pancake houses? - Carole Whipped butter couldn't be easier! Simply place a stick of softened (room temperature) butter in a deep bowl and whip with an electric mixer until light, fluffy and greater in volume. Scoop into an attractive serving bowl to serve with pancakes or waffles, hot biscuits, fresh bread or anything else that is enhanced by the smooth savor of fresh butter. It may be stored in the refrigerator in a tightly covered bowl.

At the same time that you're buttering your morning toast, you also may be slathering it with the tiny amounts of the flame retardant PBDE. In a study to be published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers found that each of 10 samples of butter purchased at five Dallas grocery stores contained various types of PBDEs. Although it was a limited sampling and the amounts were small enough to be measured in trillionths of a gram per gram of butter, lead researcher Arnold Schecter said the concentration was the highest found so far in food.

Talk about clogged arteries. Hundreds of pounds of butter and 200 gallons of diesel oil shut down northbound lanes of the New Jersey Turnpike in Camden County for about six hours yesterday following an early-morning pileup involving five tractor-trailers and a van. The crash occurred shortly after 2:30 a.m. when one of the big rigs, driven by an 82-year-old, failed to slow down in a construction zone between Exits 3 and 4 in Cherry Hill,...

SINCE HIS son was born two years ago, three generations of men in Ernest Jones' family have had a standing Monday lunch date in his Northern Liberties kitchen. It's a way for Jones to spend quality time with his father, Joseph Jones, and son, Ernest Jr., while doing something he loves - cooking. "When somebody enjoys what you made, it's a gratification that goes way beyond the hours you spent preparing" it, said Jones who gravitated to the kitchen as a youngster. His mother is an expert at fried chicken, beef stew and fish and grits.

Makes 16 4-inch pancakes, 4-6 servings 1 cup sour cream 3 large eggs, separated 2 tablespoons melted    butter 7 tablespoons cake    flour 1 tablespoon sugar 1/2 teaspoon baking    soda 1/2 teaspoon salt Vegetable oil 1. Whisk the sour cream and egg yolks together in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk in the melted butter. Put the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt into a sieve and sift it into the sour cream mixture. Lightly whisk until just mixed (a few lumps won't hurt anything)

Makes 16 to 20 servings 4 cups flour 2 cups sugar 1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, room temperature,    cut into cubes 2 cups boiling water 1 tablespoon baking soda 1 cup molasses 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking pan. 2. Combine flour, sugar, and butter into crumbs in a large bowl, using two knives, a pastry blender, or your fingers. Reserve one cup of crumbs for the topping. 3. In a separate large bowl, add the baking soda and molasses to the boiling water.

This quiche remake reduces the butter and cheese and eliminates the crust entirely. This dish can easily be prepared a day in advance. Reheat uncovered in a 350-degree oven.   Spinach and Mushroom Torte 10 to 12 servings 1 tablespoon mild olive oil 1 tablespoon butter 1/2 cup finely diced onion 12 ounces white mush- rooms, cleaned, stem- med, and thinly sliced Kosher salt Ground black pepper 8 large eggs, beaten 11/2 cups low-fat milk (2 percent)

Makes 12 muffins Butter to grease muffin tin 1 cup flour 3/4 cup cornmeal 2 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk 1 egg 4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted 1. Preheat oven to 425° F. Grease pan with butter. 2. Mix together next five ingredients in a bowl. 3. Measure the milk into a glass measuring cup, add the egg, and whisk to combine. 4. Make a little well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the egg-milk mixture.

Makes 6 servings 8 medium to large russet potatoes, peeled 2 tablespoons butter ¼ cup milk Salt to taste 1.    Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1-inch chunks. Place in a large pot. Cover with cold water. 2.    Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat to medium, letting the potatoes continue to cook for 15 to 20 minutes, or until they can be easily pierced with a fork. 3.    Drain all but about 2 tablespoons of water. 4. Add butter, and with a mixer, begin to whip the potatoes, slowly drizzling in the milk a little at a time.

Percy Street Barbecue is known for ribs, brisket, and the like. Three years in at Ninth and South Streets, chef Erin O'Shea has added seafood and Southern dishes to her menu, channeling her Southern cooking roots. She gets grits from Byrd Mill in Ashland, Va. They cook all day in chicken stock with a touch of butter and salt before they're chilled overnight; the next day, cooks hit 'em with more stock, butter, and salt, and serve them with surry sausage, fried oysters, and pickled red onion ($8)

WE KNOW better than to try to pin down the details on Anne Cappelletti's homemades. But a plate of Crabby Snacks sounds like the perfect accompaniment to Sunday's broadcast of the Academy Awards, which starts at 8:30 p.m. on ABC. The finger food - a/k/a Crab Bites, a/k/a Old English Crab Hors D'Oeuvres - is featured in Oscar-nominated, locally filmed "Silver Linings Playbook. " It's a tradition in the household of former Haddonfield teacher Matthew Quick, who wrote the novel. CRABBY SNACKS 7 oz. can crabmeat (well-drained)

Makes 10 servings 3 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks 1 cup milk, hot but not boiling 1/2 pound unsalted butter Salt and white pepper, to taste 3 egg yolks 1. For potato puree: Warm oven to 300 degrees. Add potatoes to large pot of cold, salted water. Bring to a boil and cook until just tender, about 8-10 minutes. Potatoes should just break apart against side of the pot when pressed with a wooden spoon. 2. Drain and place potatoes on sheet tray, then place in warmed oven for 5 minutes to allow excess liquid to evaporate (this allows potatoes to absorb more milk and butter)

Holiday cookie baking can take over a kitchen for days and even weeks, with multiple dough recipes to measure, roll, shape, bake, ice, glaze, and sprinkle. Having baked hundreds of cookies over the years, I've developed a new strategy to manage the bake-a-thon: Take one great, basic recipe - be it for brownies, biscotti, or brittle - and make variations on the theme. By far the easiest and tastiest is the butter-blessed cookie favorite: shortbread. With a basic recipe - four ingredients if you count salt - you can quickly create a dozen different cookies or bars, with a range of flavors and shapes.