Longing for the Easy Life

Well I question my decision to start this cookie business. It would be much easier to just be the worker bee.


Two weeks ago we delivered a ½ case of cookies to a coffee shop. I was using a different oven other than our convection that I’m use to. As it turns out the cookies had to bake longer affecting the shelf life quality. The coffee shop owner complained as well he should.

On Friday he ordered another case, upset that we could not deliver any until Monday as students have started to complain. I assured him that the taste would be consistent with our prior cookies. From the Expo I worked over the phone with the women baking, walking them thru each step. The taste was now consistent but wouldn’t you know something had to go wrong: Now the cookies are smaller than they had been, hence overpriced.

As I’m on the road in Northern California it is impossible to know what went wrong. I suspect that the baker may have picked up a scoop I’d used to test for samples or took a deep swipe in the scoop as they took the excess dough off before placing it on the sheet.

Now I’ve had to take a cut in price for this batch in the effort to be fair. I was really upset about our production consistency but this has been a huge lesson for me. I thought that I’d spelled out everything but it is the details that can trip one up. I’m just privately thankful that the owner of this coffee shop is still willing to work with us thru this learning curve.

I’ll need to be very careful when reviewing the problem with the employees. They were so happy over the baking job they’d done and I don’t want for them to lose their vision for the product or feel unappreciated. So I’ll need to go to Santa Barbara next week and work out the baking details. The balance for keeping the employees feeling like they are important and making sure that they make the product my way is a careful line.

I long for the easy life at this moment!

Samples for the Grandkids

Food Expos are so much fun. We come for the ideas and stay for the food!


The vendors are there to sell their products so many of them give out samples of their wares. The variety at the Fancy Food was a step up from the Western Food Expo with an entire area of items from Italy, another from Korea and so forth. The samples give us tastes of products that are pure tasting pleasures as well as new items being taste tested or just being introduced into the market.

Some vendors also have packaged samples, like new flavors of taffee, chocolates from Belgium and even jelly beans. These we can take home and eat later when we are not so stuffed.

We decided to pick up samples for our two grandkids in Arcata as we are on our way to see them from the Expo. I laughingly texted my son that we have probably 5# of packaged samples for the kids. Our thought is to give the boys what they want tonight and then we will go to the motel and sleep. Isn’t that what grandparents do?

The Fancy Food Loot

I’m stuffed! We just had two days of an eating frenzy at the Fancy Foods Expo in San Francisco. We came here for ideas to give the cookies just a little pizzazz for marketing, but mostly we ate.


This expo was like the name indicates, Fancy Food. The finest chocolates in the world, finest cheeses, olives, bbq and on and on are all under one roof. Actually two roofs as there are 2 buildings full of booths.

On Sunday, the first day, we stuffed on chocolates, dolmas, all kinds of olives, but too late found some wonderful bbq., Stubbs I think is the name. We could not eat anymore food and they were cleaning up.

Today we made straight for the BBQ, like a bee. As we waited in a short line I spoke with one of the employees about where the best bbq in the U.S. is. I told him about my very favorite in Memphis but I was going to give his a try. There was no line to speak of so we got a rib and some brisket. The brisket was the most tender I’ve ever had and the rib was so good. We got back in line, this time they gave me one of their t-shirts while I waited. We then piled our plates with brisket, ribs and smoked pork. What a way to start the day.

By afternoon we were really full. Not even a chocolate could tempt me but nevertheless I did try to get another morsel down.

On the way out I had a burp, good but couldn’t tell what it was.

Cookie Mistakes

Over the past few weeks my son and I have had several different ideas for baking the cookies for markets. One idea was that I would bake at his kitchen, and then we thought that maybe I should find a kitchen here and I would just be over the cookies completely.  A couple of weeks ago I went to bake and Nate put out a new idea that he would act as a co-packer. His employees are becoming more efficient so he was thinking that he could rent the kitchen for an additional day and bake most of the cookies that we would need for nearly any situation. That sounded good to me as that would free me up to work more storm work as a claims adjuster, a much more lucrative proposition.

We decided that I would come to the kitchen and go thru the baking process with Nate from start to finish. I went to the kitchen and walked Nate thru the Crunchy Cookies. He was really busy with other products but would come and look when he needed. Finally I finished mixing the ingredients and put the cookies on sheets close together and then popped them into the freezer as these would be a pre-formed cookie.

I then started the Chewy Cookies and was well underway when I asked my hubby to make sure the baking soda was out. OMG I realized that I had forgotten to put baking soda and salt in the Crunchy Cookies. We baked a few and found that they were not quite as good but would pass.

I told my hubby to put the salt and the soda in a little almond meal as we did not want to forget those ingredients again. He added the mixed meal into the mixing bowl and I started scoping the dough onto the baking sheets. Dale was putting the ingredients away when he looked at the two containers he had used. OPPS! He had actually gotten two containers of sea salt down and put some of each in, hence no soda but twice the salt. I did add some soda but we had one huge batch with no salt and one huge batch with twice the salt.

I told my son that I was showing him what not to do!

Going to the next level

Alright, I’m back!

This cookie business has been consuming my life and I’m afraid that the blogs will probably be about launching this business for another few blogs. I’ll write some of the very crazy things we’ve experienced in the next blogs.

Today is SHOWTIME!! Well I hope it is.

As I’ve written before, cookies are in a couple of stores in Northern California and a coffee shop in Goleta. I’ve had some reorders but now that the holidays are over I’ll see about getting a regular delivery system going for them.

So why is today Showtime? Well in early December I was in Peet’s Coffee in Petaluma, a favorite haunt when I’m in that area. I was ordering my coffee and noticed that they had nothing that I could eat, nothing for the gluten intolerant. I mentioned to the cashier that they had nothing for me and they might be interested in my cookies. She immediately gave me the contact info for the corporate office. I did call the office but they asked that I wait until January to submit samples when they would have more time to take a look. Gelson’s also requested that samples be sent in January.

Well it is January so today is the day I’ll bake and ship, not only to Peet’s but Gelson’s and Lassen’s. My good friend Charlene (she is acting as a business manager) has also insisted that cookies will go to Oprah and the Today Show.  YIKES! A really scary and really exciting day for me!