The butter pig. Well, I've been meaing to explain for a while now. This is one of those stories that maybe is more interesting or funny if you were there at the time. Still, I get enough questions via email that I'm going to take a shot here.
A few years back, I was getting ready for one of my winter parties. I'd purchased some or all of the ingredients that I needed, and was lazing around with some folks at work. I mentioned that I had 16 pounds of butter (this is neither the most or least butter that I've used at a party, but I think this is the first time I'd gotten so much at once, so it seems like quite a bit to me at the time).
The reaction around the table was one of both horror and fascination. What on Earth was I going to do with so much butter? Was I going to carve something out of it? "What," I said, "like a pig or something?" And so, the butter pig was born. The next comment sealed the fate when someone said, "Sure! Then you could roast it on a spit." This mental image of a 16 pound block of butter somehow being spit-roasted became the in-joke during stressful times at work.
Since then, we've found butter lambs in the store during Easter time, and have come to learn that there are butter carving contents held at various state fairs. But nothing will ever replace in my mind the butter pig.