Photo: Siona Watson/Flickr

If you’ve never made butter before, here’s your chance! 

You can do it live, online, guided by two Irish enthusiasts and in the company of other butter enthusiasts from around the world. Tomorrow. Just in time to slather it on your soda bread. 

Irish broadcaster and journalist Ella McSweeney, who covers food and farming, is hosting a live event called Butter Live! from Tipperary, Co. Cork, this Wednesday, March 16th. The event celebrates Grow It Yourself Week, sponsored by the eponymous not-for-profit (GIY Ireland) encouraging folks to grow food.

Butter Live! is for everyone who has an internet connection. The idea is that people buy 2 pints of cream that day and log on from their kitchens at 7pm Irish time (3pm EST) with the cream, a bowl and a whisk.

Ella will team up with Cork dairy farmer Alan Kingston of award-winning Glenilen Farm to guide you through the process of turning fresh white cream into a block of yellow butter. (Their raw milk cream will come from Brochan Cocoman’s award-winnning Kildare herd.) In Ella’s words, making butter is “a surprisingly easy and satisfying process that requires lots of churning and a bit of skill.”

The more people who join in around the world, the better. Butter lives!

DETAILS (what/when/where/how)
Butter Live!
March 16th, 7 pm Irish time (3 pm EST)
What you need: 2 pints of fresh cream, a whisk, a bowl with iced water, a spatula, a computer
Log on to http://www.giyireland.com/ at the appointed time
Mmmmmm good.