Butter

Artist Kathy Butterly, whose abstract ceramic sculptures are noted for their colorful and playful aspects, has won the Smithsonian's Contemporary Arts Award for 2012. The biennial honor comes with a $25,000 prize and is intended to recognize artists younger than 50 who have produced a significant body of work. Butterly typically creates small-scale ceramic sculptures that are brightly colored and abstract in shape. Her work is often compared to the sculptures of Ron Nagle and Ken Price. The five-member jury that chose this year's winner wrote that Butterly's "small, nuanced, labor-intensive sculptures are richly communicative and wildly imaginative.

Kathy Butterly does for sculpture what digital technology does for information: pack so much into such small spaces that it's impossible to reconcile an object's literal dimensions with the kicks it delivers. Size matters, but not like it used to. Think of what Butterly does as the microscopic sublime. Intimately and gently, she blows your mind, time after time, and never the same way.  At Shoshana Wayne Gallery, “Lots of Little Love Affairs” consists of 15 tabletop sculptures the New York artist has made over the last 18 months.

For many, clarified butter is the cooking fat of choice in the kitchen. It is butter where the milk solids, water and whey proteins have been removed. The resulting butter is a beautifully clear golden liquid when melted, preferred in many recipes because it can be cooked at higher temperatures than standard butter. (The milk solids in standard butter can easily burn.) Because it's clarified, this butter can also last longer -- the milk solids that can cause standard butter to go rancid so quickly have been removed.

Our national nightmare is over. Fears of an ongoing shortage of peanuts and hence peanut butter (which, if it isn't a food group, should be) have been alleviated by a record peanut crop. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the 2012 peanut harvest should hit 6.1 billion pounds, topping the 2008 record of almost 5.2 billion pounds. The increase has cut peanut prices by more than half since the spring, prompting makers of peanut butter to say retail prices should come down in coming months.

While Ben Affleck's upcoming film "Argo" is already generating Oscar buzz, wife Jennifer Garner has another flop on her hands with "Butter. " The satirical comedy , which stars Garner as a Michele Bachmann-esque butter carver, debuted in 90 theaters this weekend and grossed $70,653. That amounts to a disastrous per-location average of $785, according to an estimate from The Weinstein Co.'s Radius-TWC unit. Garner, 40, is no stranger to box office disappointment. In August, her family drama "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" underperformed with a total domestic gross of about $50 million.

Check that peanut butter in your fridge. Again. Even if you haven't been shopping at Trader Joe's. On Thursday, Sunland Inc. expanded its nut butter recall to include all products made in its Portales, N.M., facility between March 1, 2010 and Sept. 24, 2012 - bringing the total number of products potentially implicated in a recent Salmonella outbreak to 240.  In addition to peanut and almond butters from Trader Joe's, some of which were first linked to salmonella illness in mid-September, the new recall includes nut butters sold at Target, Fresh & Easy, Costco and other stores.  In its own Salmonella update , the Food and Drug Administration also called attention to “related recalls” of peanut butter cookies, crackers and snacks - including peanut sesame noodles and other prepared items from Whole Foods Market.

The art of sculpting huge blocks of fat is the focus of a strange-but-true competitive event at the Iowa State Fair. Wielding trowels with the utmost precision, carvers ply their craft in temperature-controlled booths. In contrast, "Butter," which uses a local lead-up to that bout as the battleground setting for hit-and-miss comedy, has all the exactitude and rigor of unrefrigerated oleo. The would-be satire is nothing more than a bunch of sketch characters and jokes welded to a sentimental subplot.

The peanut butter recall that started this past weekend with a salmonella-linked product sold at Trader Joe's has now been expanded to dozens of peanut, cashew and almond butters, according to producer Sunland Inc. The New Mexico-based company manufactured and packaged the Trader Joe's Creamy Salted Valencia Peanut Butter that regulators have since connected to 29 salmonella illnesses in 18 states, including California. Sunland this week said its voluntary recall now also includes 76 varieties of almond butter, peanut butter, cashew butter, tahini and roasted blanched peanut products.

Paula Deen's blooper reel is raw, uncensored and a Web sensation. And if we were really being skeptical, we'd also label it a brilliant little piece of P.R. But we're not. Instead, like the masses, we're enjoying the deep-fried mash-up of the Food Network star's bloopers and blunders, not to mention the eyebrow-raising antics and even some down-and-dirty cussin'. Among the naughtier bits: Deen is seen hollering swear words and using a chocolate eclair to mimic a sex act. The New York Post was the first to publish the story about the reel, which the newspaper says is at the center of a dispute involving Deen and Celebrity Chefs Tours, which puts together events featuring popular chefs like Deen.

Who says pancakes are just for breakfast? These savory pancakes from Yotam Ottolenghi get their flavor from a colorful blend of spinach, green onions, cumin and serrano chile. Round out the harmony with a pat of lime butter spiced with cilantro, garlic, chile flakes and you can call it a meal any time of the day. The whole dish comes together in less than an hour. For more quick-fix dinner ideas, check out our video recipe gallery . Food editor Russ Parsons and Test Kitchen manager Noelle Carter show you how to fix a dozen dishes in an hour or less.