Recipe: Homemade Butter

When I was at the City Market Co-Op in Burlington, VT I was given a recipe card with a way to make homemade butter. I was so excited because local organic butter is so expensive and this is a way to make it yourself for less.

Directions:

Fill a small jar half full of cream. Shake vigorously until you see the yellow butter solidify inside. The liquid is buttermilk and can be strained off to use for cooking or drinking.

Tricks to Making Awesome Butter

Leave the cream out of the fridge for a few hours before you want to make the butter to get it to room temperature. Warm cream turns to butter more quickly than cold cream.

If you get tired of shaking the jar, or to make butter more quickly, our the cream into a food processor (with the metal blade attachment) or blender and turn it on. After a few minutes, you will see small yellow butter beads form. Strain this liquid through a cheese cloth (or coffee filter) catching the white liquid for buttermilk, if desired. Strain the butter through the cheese cloth, pressing out all the buttermilk until a solid ball is formed.

Once butter is formed, knead it under cold running water to squeeze out any remaining buttermilk.

Knead in salt to draw out the flavor if desired.

EOTO at Memorial Auditorium in Burlington, VT

EOTO, if you didn't know is comprised of the fabulous Jason Hann and Michael Travis of the String Cheese Incident. This side project is an electronic dub step experiment that has gone extremely well. If you compared it to a high school science project volcano, it would have erupted and blew the roof off the school. That is how awesome this side project is!

When I first arrived at the Memorial Auditorium in Burlington, Vermont, I was surprised at how young everyone was. I don't want to date myself, but if I had a child at a young age they could have been at that show. Actually some of my friend's kids were. I loved the young energy and the outfits they had on were amazing. I'm going to use that for inspiration for outfits I'm going to plan out for the future. I didn't know that the 80's style of day glow tights and shiny silver bootie shorts were back...but I have to say that I'm thrilled. Anyway to get back to the subject of the show, these youngsters were loving it! They could hardly contain their excitement and were dancing like maniacs. I'm not sure how the Memorial Auditorium staff kept everyone from jumping from the rafters.

Jason Hann kept everyone's feet moving with his fast and furious drum beats while Michael Travis rocked our worlds with his guitar and computer mixer thing (I'm pretty sure that is the technical term). EOTO was the opener for Bass Nectar and usually when you are the opener, people don't show up until the main act is scheduled to hit the stage. This was not the case for EOTO. The auditorium was packed to the brim. That just shows you what an amazing act EOTO is.

Their tour is continuing and I wish I could just follow them around. Every show I've been to has knocked my socks off...and they were my fancy dancing socks. That's impressive. Make sure to check out all their future tour dates and don't miss them when they come to your town. If you do...you will be sad and probably cry. I don't want you to cry.

EOTO's Website...check it out!!!

Review by: Taraleigh Weathers

Two Sisters Check Out Great American Taxi

On April 16, 2011 two sisters were lucky enough to not only be in Breckenridge, Colorado, but to get to see Great American Taxi for the first time. Did they love it? Did they hate it? Did they come out alive? Read on to see what they thought.

Taraleigh's Reaction (The Older Sister)

I know that I love Leftover Salmon so I was pretty certain I would love Great American Taxi and I was right! Three20South is kind of a dive bar in the basement of a building on Main Street in Breckenridge. Breckenridge isn't known for it's dive bars, but quite the opposite so I was pleasantly surprised with this venue since I am a dive bar fan. The opening band Oakhurst was fabulous and got me in the mood to rock the place with all my fancy dance moves. Once Great American Taxi took the stage I was ready for the ride and all my best moves came out. My sister's did too. That is probably why so many guys thought it was ok to say inappropriate things to us. I mean our moves were sick! Besides the inappropriate men the show was fantastic. Vince totally killed it. He has so much energy and gives it everything he's got. He brought the entire crowd on his ride of ragin bluegrass splendor and wouldn't let us out of the cab until he hit his last note...not that we wanted to get out of the cab anyway.

All in all the music was fabulous, the venue was down home and the people were dancing like there was no tomorrow. I would recommend that everyone get on the taxi that is called the Great American Taxi. You won't regret going for the ride. I hope they pick me up again soon!!!

Kimberly (The Younger Sister)

I had no idea what to expect from Great American Taxi, despite the fact that I live in NYC and spend a lot of time in some really great, uh, American taxis. Upon entering the bar, I felt encouraged by the dive bar feel, super cheap drinks and friendly bartenders. I was a bit skeeved out by the aforementioned way too forward guys, however decided to not let that put a damper on the night. We rocked out all night and really enjoyed the music, as well as the randomly placed tiki sculptures on the dance floor. The energy of the crowd was really amazing and got me totally pumped up to be spending my first night in the glorious ski town of Breckenridge. I would love to check them out again and would definitely recommend the band, the venue and our rocking dance moves to anyone who is looking for a good night!