The Cookie Cure

by Susan Stachler

  People who visited our booth also commented on Mom and me working together. Some people thought it was great and said they’d love to work with their moms, but others, not so much. We kept hearing, “Are you mother and daughter?” and “You two work together?” and “You must be related. I can see it!”

  Mom laughed. “It must be our matching blue eyes and blond hair!” Mom and I don’t look alike. She has dark brown eyes and brown hair, while I have blue eyes and lighter hair. There must have been something in our mannerisms that made our relationship so obvious.

  When people talked about how difficult they thought it would be to work with their mothers, Mom and I would look at each other and laugh, knowing exactly what the other was thinking. We had been through a lot worse than standing around in a booth together all day.

  The show at the Mart proved two things: people liked our product, and Mom and I could push ourselves to accomplish our goals. We did something we’d never done before, and even though we were nervous, we kept going. And now that I knew we could do it, I was ready to do even more.

  During treatment, when my only goal was to get through it, I had become used to taking things one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time. But after our experience at the Mart, I saw the need to start planning for the future and strategizing about how to grow our business. Mom and I needed to think bigger.

  Coming out of the show, we had more orders than we’d ever imagined we would—so many that it was difficult to get all the work done. Although gingersnaps were our specialty, we were still selling a range of other desserts, and it was getting tricky to juggle the different prep work and baking times for each product.

  So while I was packing up boxes to ship out to customers one busy day, I asked Mom, “What if we put some of these desserts on the back burner? I’ve been thinking, maybe we should see what would happen if we focused solely on Susansnaps.”

  What I was proposing would be a huge leap of faith, and that was scary, but Mom agreed. “If we get any requests for cakes or pies, I’ll bake them, but I’m game to stop promoting everything but the Susansnaps. Let’s try it for a few months and see how it goes.”

  Laura’s Divine Desserts remained our parent company, but from that moment on, we thought of our business as Susansnaps, and our signature gingersnap became our core product.

  We’d learned at the Mart that most people selling at major wholesale trade shows don’t make their products by hand. While most people had machines, suppliers, and warehouses, Mom and I had each other. From the dough to the packaging, our product was entirely handmade. That was another thing that set us apart, but I was beginning to see that if we wanted to grow our business, it wasn’t going to be sustainable. We were working ridiculous hours, spurred on by the fear of having to call our new customers and say, We’re sorry for the delay, but your cookies won’t be shipping on time. Failure was not an option for us. Besides, the sooner we shipped orders, the sooner we’d get reorders. We had to figure out a way to be more efficient.

  Our process of hand-scooping each individual cookie with a mini ice cream scoop produced perfectly round cookies, but it was laborious. We would start with a clump of cold dough in one pan and raw sugar crystals in another. Mom would scoop the dough, press it against the edge of the pan to flatten the top, then squeeze the lever on the ice cream scoop to release a little ball of dough into the second pan. From there, I would shake the ball of dough around in the sugar, then place it on a tray. We’d repeat that process sixty times, lining up the cookies ten across and six down. Then I would press the tops flat with the bottom of a glass measuring cup. Once we had five trays complete, they went into the oven, and twelve minutes later, perfectly round, toasty gingersnaps came out, along with the wonderful aroma of ginger, cloves, and cinnamon.

  One day, having lost count of how many trays we’d filled and baked, with my hand cramping up, I said, “Mom, there’s got to be a better way. This is dumb.”

  Mom held up her hand in the shape of a claw and chuckled. “I think my hand’s stuck like this. Can you unpeel my fingers?”

  I did some research and found a machine called the Kook-e-King, which the manufacturer claimed would facilitate “low-cost automation of cookie production.” Mom made some calls, finally connecting with a dealer in Illinois.

  “Suz, do we want new or used?” she asked, holding one hand over the phone.

  “Used?” I said. “I don’t know. How bad are the used ones?”

  “Well, the one this guy is selling has been refurbished and steam cleaned.”

  “Let’s go with that, if we’ll save a little money.”

  For the next few days, we continued making our gingersnaps the usual way, eagerly awaiting the delivery of the Kook-e-King. When it arrived, we discovered that it was surprisingly heavy. Mom tried to lift it and gasped, “Suz, grab the other side.” We heaved it onto the table, and there it sat. All we had to do to get it running was attach one wire. We felt like we’d hit the jackpot.

  “Grab a tray,” I said. “Let’s try this thing out.”

  Although “automation of cookie production” sounds fancy, the Kook-e-King basically worked like the plastic Play-Doh machine I used to have when I was little. You’d set the dough in the top of the machine, then slide a tray underneath it with your left hand while simultaneously turning a handle with your right. Six round discs of dough would drop in a single line across the cookie sheet. Then you’d slide the tray a bit more, turn the crank again, and six more discs would come out. It was very simple, but it was definitely a big improvement over hand-scooping each individual cookie. Mom and I were practically jumping up and down with excitement, fighting over who got to use it first.

  “Okay, you go,” I said to Mom. “I’ll time you.”

  She grabbed the handle and started turning. Crank, clink, drop. Crank, clink, drop.

  “Sixty cookies in seventeen seconds!” I announced. “Mom, just think how many we can do in a day!”

  Susansnaps slowly grew over the next few months, morphing from something Mom and I had thought would be fun to try into a legitimate business. People tend to envision owning their own business as the most glamorous thing in the world, and sometimes it is, but most of the time, it’s just a lot of hard work. We soon learned that entrepreneur was just a fancy French word that meant work! Since it was just the two of us, we got to spend plenty of time baking and chatting with customers, but we also had to take out the trash, wash dishes, mop the floor, work on the website, ship boxes, balance the books, and more. Every detail came down to us. It was exciting to watch Susansnaps grow, but sometimes it felt like a 24–7 job.

  The best thing about Susansnaps was that our cookies made people happy. One order a day meant that we made one person smile. Four orders a day meant that we made four people smile. We weren’t saving the world, but we had a product that made other people’s day a bit better, and that drove us to keep going. Each day brought something new, and I started to enjoy that little bit of unpredictability. Who will call today? How many boxes will we ship? What gift or food show will we be accepted to? I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next. I loved imagining the possibilities, because I started to believe that every possibility was possible.

  When we needed ingredients, we headed off to Costco. Doing our shopping was actually kind of fun, mostly because of the looks we’d get from other customers as we, this crazy mother-daughter duo, sped through the store at top speed, piling supplies onto a flatbed cart. We’d form our two-person assembly line, stacking up dozens of pounds of flour and sugar, hundreds of eggs, and so on. Then, to get the heavy flatbed in motion, Mom and I both had to lean our entire bodies into the handle and push, hoping that no innocent shoppers would wander into our path. With some maneuvering, we’d ease into the checkout line, where we’d get more looks and questions. “What could you two possibly be doing with all of this? Looks like you’re going to
be busy.”

  Mom and I would laugh. “Yep,” we’d say, and we’d hand out a Susansnaps brochure for good measure.

  One day, we inadvertently caused a bit of a scene. After we’d checked out, Mom ran to get the car while I waited with the flatbed. She pulled the car around and we began loading it, systematically stacking twenty-five-pound bags into the trunk. Just then, a huge fire truck pulled up behind us, casting a shadow over our car. A burly firefighter jumped out and called to us, “Do you two ladies need a little help?”

  I wanted to say yes, but Mom answered, “Oh no, we’ve got it!” As if two women loading more than four hundred pounds of ingredients into a Volvo parked outside Costco was the most normal thing ever. That’s Mom for you. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

  Another firefighter climbed out of the truck and laughed. “Really? We don’t mind.”

  Mom responded, “Thanks, but we do this all the time. We’re good.”

  “We could use you at the firehouse!” he said.

  Once our car was stuffed, we slowly pulled away, riding what felt like two inches off the pavement.

  • • •

  Things were going well for Susansnaps, so I thought it was time to take another shot at writing to newspapers and magazines about covering our story. I studied communication in college, so I had dabbled a bit with press releases. I knew to write in third person and keep it brief, fact-based, and to the point. I spent countless hours writing and rewriting our press release. But even though I’d followed the rules and included all the relevant information, something about what I’d written fell flat. It sounded impersonal, like I was writing about someone else. But I sent the press release out anyway, hoping that it would get other people interested in our story.

  A few weeks went by with no response. I reread the press release over and over. It was grammatically correct, clear, and to the point, but I hated it. It sounded stiff. So I decided to try something different: I began writing a personal letter. I figured, What’s the worst that can happen? If it doesn’t work, I’ll try something else. The letter came from me, and I felt much better about it. I wrote about my mom, Laura, and our cookie business called Susansnaps. I wrote, rewrote, tweaked, agonized over each word, and then finally thought, Let’s give this a whirl.

  For me, it was easier to write about our story than to tell it to customers in person. I wanted to share my thoughts about Mom, Aunt Sue, Dad, and myself, and I could write things that were hard to say out loud. I also knew that people weren’t going to randomly discover our business or come up our driveway and magically find a gourmet cookie company at the end of it. Some media attention would help.

  I planned to email the letter to Daryn Kagan, a former CNN news anchor who now ran her own website focusing on unique human interest stories that “show the world what’s possible.” Sitting in our office, I must have read my letter ten times over, to the point of driving myself nuts. Then I called upstairs to Mom, “I’m going to send it. Do you think I should? Should I read it to you again?”

  Mom responded, “It’s nicely written. I’m sure she’ll like what you wrote. Send it.”

  I clicked Send. Less than seven minutes later, the phone rang. I assumed that it was Mom calling to tell me to come back upstairs. It wasn’t. The caller ID read, “Kagan, Daryn.” This is a joke, right? I jumped out of my chair and hovered over the phone. I didn’t even know how to answer it professionally, since Mom took all the calls.

  I picked up the receiver and tentatively said, “Hello?”

  “Is this Susan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hi, it’s Daryn Kagan. I’m looking at your email right now.”

  She’s reading it now? While she’s on the phone with me? Part of me was excited and part of me was mortified. As I panicked, she kept talking. “Thank you for your letter. I like your story, and I’d like to meet you and your mom. Are you available Tuesday?”

  I gulped. “Yes, we are free Tuesday.”

  “Great!” she said enthusiastically. “I have your address. How about we make it ten thirty? See you then.”

  And that was that. What just happened? I thought. I hit Send, and within ten minutes I got us an interview with a recognized journalist. I ran upstairs to tell Mom, who asked the obvious questions: “What does she want to see? What is she going to ask us? What did she say?”

  “Oh,” I said. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

  “Susan, you have to call her back and find out what questions she’s going to ask so we can be prepared,” Mom said.

  “What?” I looked at her. “You think I should call Daryn back? Wouldn’t that be weird?”

  Mom shook her head breezily. “No. It’s fine. You know she’s at her desk right now, so just give her a quick call.”

  So I did. Can you believe it? I called her back and said, “Hi! It’s Susan. I was wondering, what questions will you ask us? We want to be prepared.” I bet I sounded ridiculous. Actually, I know I did.

  Daryn was very nice. She might have chuckled a little, but she was reassuring. “I like to keep it fresh. I want to get your honest answers on camera. You’ll be great. I’ll guide you along.”

  But she didn’t give us a list of questions. I still can’t believe I called her. From then on, I never asked another reporter, journalist, or blogger to give us their questions ahead of time.

  • • •

  In the meantime, I kept thinking. We didn’t have funds to pay for traditional advertising, so we had to get creative. On one of our Costco runs, I brought our camera along. As we shopped, I flagged down another customer and asked him to take a picture of Mom and me loading our mountain of flour and sugar onto the flatbed. Then I wrote an email about how we buy all our supplies at Costco and sent it to their corporate office in Seattle. A few weeks later, a writer called. I took the phone out to our driveway, away from the hum of the oven and the buzz of the timer, answering questions. A month later, we had a nice mention in the Costco Connection—our first national publication. The West Coast got the magazine first, and orders started popping up from Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. I walked into the shop with a handful of printed orders from our online store and handed them to Mom. “Look! We’ve reached the West Coast.”

  Bolstered by our success, we decided to apply for the Yellow Daisy Festival, one of the largest outdoor craft shows in the South. We weren’t sure what to expect, but some of the vendors we met at the Mart had highly recommended it, so we crossed our fingers that we would be accepted.

  Mail came in the afternoons, and I started taking daily trips from the shop to the mailbox, hoping to find an acceptance letter. Trekking down our long, steep driveway, I couldn’t help but notice how much easier it was to do, compared to a year ago. I used to take that same walk when I was sick, and I would have to stop and sit on the curb until I’d regained enough strength to walk back up. Now, as I zipped along effortlessly, I couldn’t believe it used to take me twenty minutes, with the help of my sixteen-year-old sister, to get up and down the driveway. We would carry on like it was normal, chatting on the curb next to the mailbox. Carey would even wave at the cars that drove by, signaling we’re all good here. By the time we’d shuffled our way back up, I would be exhausted. But the day the envelope arrived with Yellow Daisy Festival Jury stamped in the return address, I practically skipped back up to the shop.

  A few months later, on the weekend after Labor Day, we found ourselves at the show, standing under a white tent covering a dirt floor. Our tent was in the woods, nestled between two pine trees. It had drizzled that morning, and the air was extra steamy—not exactly ideal conditions for selling our cookies.

  “Mom,” I said, “do you think we should just pack it up and go?” I figured that nobody would want to buy gingersnaps on such a hot, muggy day, but Mom disagreed.

  “Susan, we already paid for the booth. Let’s just see what h
appens.” She was right. We needed to sell enough to make up the cost of the booth and tent.

  The Yellow Daisy Festival attracts many loyal vendors and shoppers who come back year after year. So when the entrance gate first opened in the morning, hundreds of early shoppers rushed past our booth, intent on visiting their favorite vendors. We stood under our tent and smiled, hoping that if we looked like we were having a good time, we’d draw some people in. As the day went on, thousands of shoppers flowed in and filled the pathways. We started offering free samples, raising our voices above the noise of the crowd to entice people into the tent to try our cookies.

  Finally, a woman said, “These are so good. I’ll take a bag.” One bag? One bag for nine dollars. This could be a long few days.

  I bent down to write a receipt for her, and by the time I straightened up, there were about twenty shoppers hovering around our table, waiting to pluck a sample cookie out of our big glass jar. We had a captive audience, and I thought, There is no reason that any of these people should walk away from our booth without buying a bag of cookies.

  This crowd was different from the one at the Mart. These shoppers weren’t business owners or corporate reps looking for new products to boost their bottom line; they were shopping for themselves or for their friends or loved ones. They were here for a more personal experience. Suddenly, I realized these shoppers were only aware that we were selling delicious cookies—they didn’t know the bigger story behind Susansnaps. As Mom continued selling, calling out, “Baked fresh daily… Stay fresh four months,” I lightly stepped on her foot. She stopped and looked over at me, making a face that clearly said, What? Can’t you see I’m busy? I was too unsure of myself to speak up and tell our backstory, but I knew Mom could do it. With my foot still resting on top of hers, I said quietly, “Say something about Susansnaps.”

  She looked around at the busy booth. “Right now?”