Stop and Smell the Butter

Stop and Smell the Butter is a handwritten and illustrated zine that captures the magical realities--and delicious recipes--of everyday life. The name derives from an essay Colleen wrote in 1994:

"We were baking cookies, my [then] four-year-old Aaron and I, and I had been rhapsodizing the properties of unbleached flour its honest color (“One of my favorite colors in the whole word,” I said), its silken texture. I felt success as a teacher, a cook, a parent when Aaron said, 'Mama! Mama! Smell the butter! Smell the butter! Mmm!' Perched on his stepstool, wooden spoon in hand, Aaron hovered over a saucepan of half-melted butter, breathing in its sweet fumes. His little hand on my head commanded me to do the same. If he retains only one lesson that I teach him, let it be this one, I thought. Let him go through life not only knowing what to do with melted butter, but how to stop and smell it, too."