Some products are so tightly woven into the culinary consciousness of a place that it’s hard to believe they ever didn’t exist. Such is the case with the Brown Butter Cookie Company, makers of a ridiculously addictive shortbread cookie that California and the Central Coast just can’t get enough of. I spoke with co-founder Traci Hozie Alderson about her beginnings in marketing for Calvin Klein fragrance, the origins of this special cookie in the back of a deli in Cayucos in 2008, how locals and out-of-towners alike have embraced it as “our cookie,” and the ways the company is currently giving back—and bursting at the seams.

Photo credit: Ruby Wallau for Edible SLO Magazine

Website: brownbuttercookies.com

Instagram: @brownbuttercookiecompany