Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Both. I keep some out (in a ceramic butter storage) on the counter for easy spreading, but always have at least a pound in the fridge as well.

Both as well. If I'm going through a period where I am spreading alot of butter on things such as bread and the like, then I'll always have a stick sitting out on the counter. But, I always have some in the fridge as well for baking.

I keep one stick on the counter for eating, and the rest in the fridge for cooking. In the winter I don't worry too much about spoilage, I use it pretty quickly....but in the summer I do put it into a butter bell just in case!

I keep it in the fridge, because I don't usually use enough butter to justify keeping it out on the counter. However, I hate rock-hard butter, and I'm feeling inspired by the people who have answered 'both.' Maybe I'll start doing that.

I do both... keep one stick on the counter in a ceramic dish and keep the rest in the fridge for cooking.

I'm with Jeana -- a stick in a glass covered butter dish on the counter for spreading, and the rest in fridge. I looked high and low for a butter bell (didn't know what it was called), but settled on the glass dish. Then I just watch out in the summer.

I've found if I buy cultured butter and leave it on the counter it only gets better with age. Um maybe not for the elderly or pregnant.

I keep it in the fridge. I love the idea of having room temperature butter for those occasions that call for it, but I just don't eat enough it enough. It would be of questionable quality when I went to use it.

I have never heard of storing butter on the counter. I store mine in the fridge, and if I need to spread it on something, I take it out a little early. Now that I think about it, it makes sense to have on the counter if you have one of those Butter Bell things or something similar, but like many of you have said, I personally don't need to spread butter often enough to leave it out all the time. Interesting, very interesting.

Butter can last for days on your kitchen counter. We eat ours way too fast for it to go bad. When butter goes bad, or becomes rancid you'll know (a cross section of bad butter is two-tone, light in the center and dark on the edges. And rancid butter smells bad). We also keep butter in the fridge AND the freezer. There's butter all over this friggin' kitchen. It should also be mentioned that there's nothing like good butter. A few years ago we started buying high quality butters like Kerrygold and President because life's too short to eat bad butter.

both

One of the best foodie things about being Irish is the amazing butter we have in this country,like Kerrygold and Avonmore,and because the one I'd use for toast etc purposes is salted it actually would last 7-10 days in a butter dish on the counter. Otherwise I keep it in the fridge and microwave bits as needed,but you have to really time it right or you have melted butter and there's no going back! What I'm curious about is what is a butter bell and what is it supposed to do?