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S U N D A Y

In an era of fat-free cream cheese and ice cream, few food dressings are as déclassé as butter. These days, the body-conscious can purchase spray-on ersatz butter for all of the chemicals and none of the guilt, but the real thing seems to have gone the way of lard and pastrami. (Although Sutton Place Gourmet offers a nice turkey pastrami.) Help grease butter’s slide from food to historical artifact at a real Butter Churning. A fully costumed docent teaches the time-honored skill in the original dairy at the Sully Mansion in Fairfax County. Nosh on your homemade butter (creamed over saltines) afterwards, justifying every delicious gram of fat with the comforting notion that you’re preserving culture. Demonstrations and tours of the federal-period home and grounds from 1-4 p.m. at Historic Sully, 3601 Sully Rd., Chantilly. $4. (703) 437-1794. (John Cloud)