Colleen Newquist (cnewquist)

Colleen Newquist is the writer, editor, illustrator, and cook behind Stop and Smell the Butter.

This journal's name derives from a 1994 entry in her cooking journal:

"We were baking cookies, my 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 world!' I had 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."