Influx

If you are fortunate enough to pay a visit to the French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, California, you will you be in for a culinary treat. The restaurant is one of the finest in America. As food experiences go it’s pretty hard to beat; amazing cooking techniques, interesting combinations, impeccable service and high quality ingredients.

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.