Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader.

Today our guest is Elaine Khosrova, author of Butter-A Rich History, published just last week by Workman.

Elaine is an independent writer who specializes in stories about food history and gastronomic culture. She holds a BS in Food and Nutrition and began her career as a test kitchen editor for Country Living and has worked with Classic American Home, Healthy Living and Santé magazines.

In 2008 she founded Culture a magazine devoted to specialty cheese. And she has contributed to the forthcoming Oxford Companion to Cheese.

SO—

Butter is something we generally just take for granted. We spread it on bread, mix it in with our baked potatoes, slice a stick for our peas or broccoli and throw a stick in the mixer for our chocolate chip cookies.

But if we stop for a moment and think about the true essence of butter, we may begin to ask questions and if we do, I have the perfect book for you.
Butter-A Rich History traces butter from its origins as a rudely churned accident in a leather skin on the back of horse and rider to the butter tea than helps propel a Sherpa up the steep slopes of Everest to the butter that is blended intricately into the folds of a croissant or the even more intricate folds of a Greek Baklava.

Whether you are a butter novice, dilettante or savant, this book provides something for each. There is even an Appendix telling you how to say butter in multiple languages and an assortment of butter and butter based recipes that are worth the price alone.

And a copious bibliography of sources.

All and all, Butter is about the taste, evocation, the meaning of this substance that aesthetically, sentimentally and nostalgically permeates our lives. Especially when I remember, as does Elaine, watching a tiger in the jungle spinning and chasing his tail until he churns his very self into the butter of which we will now speak.