Well, when I was little, I wanted two things.
I wanted to be on Broadway, and I wanted a bakery.
And I spent countless hours singing and then just as many hours probably planning out what
my bakery would look like, what kind of things I would make.
Most of them were based on recipes that my grandma would teach me and my mom.
So, cut too many years later, I moved to New York and I was that girl from Midwest who showed up
with two suitcases and a dream of the bright lights of Broadway.
Being from Kansas, from the Midwest originally, my mom always taught me that when one goes calling
on one's neighbors, one brings something deliciously homemade and packaged carefully and beautifully.
So, as I was getting to know my neighbors, I would just bake cookies and I would bring them by
and hand them to them.
It's sort of a strange thing in New York, handing baked goods to somebody you don't really know,
but they accepted them gladly and really enjoyed them, actually, which was fun.
And I really got to know my community and my neighborhood, which was really important to me.
So, after a few months of this, the employees of this gourmet shop, called the Green Grape,
mentioned to me sort of offhand one day, they said, you should really sell this stuff.
And I thought, well, that's really sweet and thank you, but, you know, I'm on Broadway,
I'm not doing that right now.
I actually remember Mike, the manager, pulled out a cookie from the case and said, OK, try this.
And then he said, now try one of your cookies.
And I didn't.
He said, yours is better.
I think we need to sell yours.
So I thought, you know what?
I'm always going to wonder if I don't try.
And so I did.
And that's sort of how Butter Plus Love was born.
I think that what matters most is that you have a product that you love and that people enjoy.
That sort of gave me the confidence to be like, OK, maybe I didn't go to pastry school,
but I do know a lot about what I'm doing.
I just wanted to go do it and just trust my gut and knew that I would learn whatever I needed to along the way.
So when I was thinking of what exactly to name my company, I came across this quote,
this Norwegian proverb that says, all cookies are made of butter and love.
It just stuck with me.
It just seemed like the perfect description.
It seemed very appropriate for me.
And where the recipes come from, just sort of my attitude, my whole approach to this.
The thing I like about butter cookies in shortbread is that it's kind of a blank slate.
There's really humble ingredients.
It's flour, butter, sugar.
That's pretty much it.
And then I just started playing.
I just started thinking, like, what are flavors that are interesting to me?
What herbs do I love?
What things remind me of cooking with my mom at home, whether it be savory or sweet?
They're humble, simple ingredients.
And then you just, I like to throw a little bit of fanciness in there.
So when people take a look at my cookies or they see the ingredients, they think, oh my gosh, this is so much.
There's rosemary and there's salt.
And there's marjoram and there's balsamic vinegar.
And people sort of don't know what to do with it.
But I always assure people, I'm just like, don't worry, just try it.
They sound fancy, but they're not fussy.
I started the company about a year ago and starting just at Green Grape.
Now I'm in 11 stores and counting.
Then we also sell online.
And then, of course, the market's on the weekend.
It's such a fun experience to be out there with all these other Brooklyn artisans,
all these people who love food and have this passion about something.
So it's sort of amazing to see how well-received our Butter Plus Love goodness has been
and then how it's grown.
I remember my first shift.
I picked up all the ingredients at the bodega, carried it in my little bag
to fill the 12 cookies that I needed from my first order
to now making upwards of 2,500 cookies a shift.
It's been really fun to see how much it's grown and changed in such a short time.
The cookies themselves are very approachable.
They remind you of home.
They remind you of cookies that your grandma makes.
Every time there's this sort of modern or inventive sort of creative twist on it.
They're just my edible labors of love.
At the end of the day, I want to make cookies that I want to eat,
something that is exciting and fun to me.
I want to try that with other people.
