use real butter

Recipe: pistachio macarons

I seem to be taking a bit of a risk blogging tonight. We have crazy wind storms raging around us, shaking our house and flickering our lights. Actually, our power went out last night right after my post, so I was lucky to hit the Submit button when I did. We’ve had several power dips throughout the day already. That and my right shoulder is jacked up for whatever reason, so hanging out on the computer isn’t such a good idea (at least not for long).

The power dips didn’t matter too much today because I was making Chinese dumplings. It’s something we eat every New Year (both western and Chinese new years). I made both the pork and shrimp fillings and cooked them into potstickers and steamed dumplings.

Recipe: chocolate pistachio biscotti

There is much to catch up on, but now I can finally catch up!

I saw my honey off yesterday at noon (conference), and then had a lovely and relaxing lunch with my friend in Boulder at Sushi Zanmai while it was freezing ass cold outside (1°F – you could call it a little cold snap) before sending her on her way to the airport. Despite the 51 hour visit, we packed a lot in and had a grand time of it! It snowed Saturday night, so we had fresh powder on the hill Sunday morning. It was also 0°F in the parking lot.

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: citrus almond salad

Did you know that this here blog, Use Real Butter (urb?), was born of surgery? I had a blog I started back in 2004 by the same name and it had everything in it: personal, rants, cooking, more rants, politics, life, more rants, work, funnies, rants, photography, relationships, and rants. Use Real Butter was more a directive on how to live life rather than how to cook – but it works for both. When I found myself wanting to participate in the food blogging world, I couldn’t. I didn’t want all of my personal baggage dumped into the public arena (I still don’t). I split my blog into Siamese twins, so to speak, and this is how you are reading the public twin which retained the original name.

When I met up with Cindy (Katie and I call her Figs, and I discovered that they call me Butter, and now I wish I had named my blog Lady Deathstrike or Badass Ripchick…) we talked about blogs that suck. I mean popular blogs that we think are *yawn* boring. My own biased deduction is that the readers have no life, which would also explain why so many crappy movies and television shows have so many viewers. Then again, those readers could accuse me of having no taste.

So what makes a blog interesting enough to keep *me* coming back?

**Jump for more butter**