Cline Wines, Washington Post, and holiday cheer...oh my!

Apologies are in order...we have been attempting to update this blog with a list of bloopers CookieZen style but keep getting distracted by REAL WORK (ha ha...tongue in cheek attempt to poke fun at professional bloggers...because we're jealous that you can make a living off of blogging!). Granted all this real work has provided plenty of inspiration for our list of "what not to do when trying to run a cookie company", and we'll share a few of those further down, but in the meantime...drum roll please...

Check out the Food Section in the December 8th issue of the Washington Post!!! We couldn't be prouder of ourselves for how far we've come since a little concept of pairing cookies and wine was born in the summer of 2009. For whatever reason, there is something just so thrilling about seeing our labor of love photographed and published in print media. This in no way discredits, knocks, or diminishes the importance of the multitude of on-line support and encouragement heaped upon us this fall. We value and appreciate every little mention our fledgling company receives and give everyone credit on our website because we know all too well what it feels like to be a voice among many (or a cookie among many...hee hee).


For those of you not in the DC Metro area, you can read our mention here: Food in The Washington Post

On a festive note, we received a very nice Christmas present from Cline Cellars located in the Carneros region of Sonoma county. Three fabulous bottles arrived for our tasting pleasure: Cashmere, Mourvedre, and Viognier. Earlier this fall we had the chance to sample these wines at a cookie and wine tasting event we conducted at Calvert Wine and Spirits outside of Baltimore and loved the unique flavor of these somewhat less familiar wine varietals. Seriously...we already are up to our necks in cookies...we needed something "fruity" to wash the calories down!

In the meantime, here are some things to digest... consider the fact that it sometimes takes us four tries to get a batch of Ginger Molasses cookies correct (a recipe we've made hundreds of times), or the one little incident of spilled essential oil of lemon that caused our Sparkling Boxes to be back ordered for a week (although isn't it a sign that you've made it when you can claim "back order" status?? Yikes...or maybe it's just wishful thinking...), or perhaps the oven fiasco in which both thermostats had to be replaced, or that one little trip to Restaurant Depot (our wholesale ingredient procurement store) in which we somehow ended up in Maryland instead of Virginia and had to call in reinforcements to pick up our children from preschool, or the fact that one of our baking assistants broke her foot and is in surgery today, or maybe it's the sheer ridiculousness of trying to parent full-time, co-op for four children at a preschool, work-out at 5:45 in the morning (because something has to be done to keep these waistlines from spilling over), run a household AND a booming business simultaneously that causes us to wonder why someone (probably a non-multitasking man) scheduled only 24 hours in a day. BTW--I'd google this answer but don't have the time!

Ho ho ho...it's been a fabulous December. Seriously. We couldn't be more blessed.

Box O' Cookies, Bottle O' Wine

The serious holiday gifting is beginning. We are slated for several appearances this month for Cookies & Corks at various wine shops and a few holiday parties. Today was a great tasting at The Wine Cabinet in Reston, VA. We love that store...owners, employees, customers, etc. We've always had a great time with wine reps there too.

See, when we show up for a tasting we generally have no idea what type of wine will be there. We come armed with some of our most versatile cookies and cross our fingers that the wine rep will be receptive to the idea of our cookies with their wine.

Our goal is to enhance the experience of wine consumption. In order to enjoy the cookies to their fullest, you need some tasty wine. It's a win-win. We pitch our cookies, they pitch their wine and the happy customer walks away with a bottle o' wine and box o' cookies. A great gift, a great evening, a great luncheon, a great book-club...you get the picture!

At the tasting, people were picking their favorite cookie and asking which wine (of those the rep had) would be best with the cookie/pairing box. Or, people were picking up wine from the rep and asking which box of cookies were best with that particular bottle of wine. Either way we were all happy...cookie ladies, wine rep, wine store and most assuredly the customer.