For the past 6 years I’ve been working on building out a business that blends people, sweet indulgence, prompts towards connection, and the most important part, putting your phone down to engage in the present moment. I’ve spent over 20 years in the service industry. I’ve learned through experiencing life, of pursuing different avenues, and engaging alternative perspectives. Although my academic achievements stopped at a BAA, I have never stopped learning, inquiring, and thinking about my role in a space and how much not only does my perspective help me execute a particular task, but also recognizing that others will also have their own individual methods for engaging with the world around them. I've had this expectation that everyone I encounter is deeply thoughtful and reflective because I'm that way. Alas, time has taught me that a vast majority of people are not. This is no way a judgement. Its something I've come to realize about myself. It’s an admission that I might be different, not better or worse, just different and that may mean I will deviate from the norm. Instead of being afraid of being different, I get to use that difference as a gift since I adjusted my perspective. And also realizing that all that deeply thoughtful and reflective does not mean "I get it." I'm having to get into my body and learn that language.
No journeys are the same. There are learning curves that need to occur. There are important questions we have the opportunities to ask ourselves, especially when we are learning how to be in the driver’s seat. As I’ve built out Cookies and Conversations over the years I’ve had a lot of opportunities to stick to one thing and grow it (like driving an automatic). I could have just picked a lane and gone. That’s not how I move. And that hasn't served me or my ability to stay engaged well. At each step I got to learn what I was in fact capable of without having a blueprint to follow. I built out and sold a product, The cookie kit. It was filled with a cookie mix, conversation cards, snacks and teas. It served as a catalyst resulting in a simple, easy way to playfully engage with each other in an activity. Doing, sensing, smelling, tasting, feeling. Embodiment and curiosity, a core tenant of play. I sold those in person very well. I learned though, through my wholesale efforts, it didn’t translate well on the shelf. It was a service and product found in food spaces. It didn’t readily translate for potential clients as a game. I evolved.
I went on to build out a brick and mortar bakery, where I created new recipes, developed family friendly classes to teach baking with private clients, after school programs, and other community focused events. I also created Art you can Eat, a fun program for Spring Break at Navy Pier in tandem with Lolitas Bodega to literally play with your food. We created edible cookie dough and shaped it like clay. We used food coloring to paint on Sugar Cookies. International, intergenerational, cross cultural, art that could literally be eaten. I hosted a monthly Talk Cookie to me Tuesday where I invited people into the bakery to have snacks, buy cookies, and engage with the conversation cards. I went to pop ups, competed in competitions, learned and executed new skills and built up a small yet mighty clientele. I did all of this, by myself for the most part. Now I briefly had an intern and I had some financial support from family. I also did some contract hires and had people volunteer here and there. But this was for the most part a solo endeavor, and it wasn’t working for me. Not enough revenue to hire, not enough collateral or growth potential to justify taking on more debt. The closing of the bakery in June of 2023 did not stop Cookies & Conversations, it redirected it.
I took my loves and my strengths, and with the support of a location, I sought to take those different lessons and simplify. Nobody’s Darling was the lab where I created Kinky Bingo. Inviting us to be awkward together. A game where you talk to strangers, and win a cookie once you’ve successfully found 5 different people who could fill a square lining up as Bingo on your Card. That’s lead to mixers, a Couples Scavenger hunt, a conversational trading card game still in the works, and partnerships and collaborations with a variety of different organizers in and around the city. And soon to be beyond.
It’s here where I’ve found my calling. It’s here where I’ve found the luxury to write. It’s here in this space where the many things I’ve done with this company have made the most sense. I know what I’m good at, what I can commit to, & stay devoted to when it get’s hard. Baking is still a large part of what we do, but as an enhancement to the experience not the main product. I work magic in person, work magic in baking, and am building out the offerings so that I can finally get the momentum to not only find myself in the black but also hire a team.
I’m still working at this. I’ve worked on and developed many different things. I’ve taken the harder approach. I didn’t like the idea of building out something I didn’t love, even if sticking with it could have put me in a better financial position. I needed to learn new lessons, more nuance. It’s shaped and clarified my vision in a way I could have never imagined possible. I see the pathway forward towards my dream, because I’ve put in work learning. Listening. Trying and failing. This is a calling. I have to be able to be a part of the baking process. There isn’t a future in this company where I’m not. That requires C&C to remain small, agile, and sophisticated if it’s going to blend passion and purpose.
Baking in itself is a conversation between the ingredients and the baker. It’s intentional, precise, rhythmic, deeply sensual, powerfully felt. The sights, sounds, scent, touch and taste all work together in a dynamic conversation start to finish, alchemy in action, an embodied experience on a multitude of levels. You don’t get that from mass produced cookies. Got to let me cook. The heart beat, the embodied experience, the Cookies…. Fanciful flavors that range from simple, familiar and comfortable, to exotic, expressive, and somatic. A dance between the inspiration and the playful curiosity in the practice, learning to execute the recipe with a deliciously unforgettable taste. These cookies, and these conversations, the willingness to meet others head on, in person, away from your device, is what brings this experience to life in a way that is unforgettable. We set the room, the rest is up to the participants. A dance between host and guests. The unprompted, moans, mmmms and ahhs are a testament to the prowess of the Chef to bring the one eating the cookie back into their body to indulge in the experience, into the present moment. We are human and there is an intrinsic need to share, to commune, to create, to just be…. Present. Would I have come to this conclusion had I stuck with the kits? Maybe? I don’t know. However, I find value in understanding the lessons on a visceral level. I now know that I can pivot, what I need to stay balanced, how to not move out of reactivity but responsiveness, which if I'm being honest is still a work in progress. There’s nuance in the difference. You can read about those things but to see how the mechanics of movement apply to your body, your being, is a whole other level of learning. It's costly in more than just financial. I won’t even hold you.
The thing about any form of art is that it is a practice. It is a devotion. You have to start. You have to start even when you are not any good, feel out of sorts, and think you look like a fool. Do it anyway. Start anyway. Stay curious with yourself in this process, think of it as play, an engaged experience between you and different people. What brings you ease, where do you naturally feel compelled to traverse. It’s a conversation with yourself, while engaged with others. What do you notice. This road is the one I chose to traverse. There may have been simpler and easier straight forward ones. My question would be what adventures, what experiences would I have missed. What opportunities of being human would I have avoided had I not taken the road less traveled. Do I even want to know?
Cookies & Conversations aims to bring you back into yourself so that you can be here in presence with others. It also serves to bring others into themselves so they can be present with you. We do that through incredible unique flavors and and a spirit of curiosity. You are literally the canvas where anything is possible. You are the art, the muse, the masterpiece, the collection, always evolving, always changing. Artistry only stops in a person when their breath is no more. It just is. Being in person with others is an art. It’s forever a process where you’ll never know all the rules and must be brave enough to commit to showing up. To pushing yourself just a little further, for asking what happens if I do this. There are no mistakes just Happy Accidents… and while we may be the material in the background, our main goal is to encourage you to begin. I’ve worked hard at pushing boundaries, of exploring limitations, of doing things that didn’t feel good but were advised as great decisions. I’m still learning to trust myself more than anything, and I’ve trained at defining what success means to me, not what the world measures as success. I keep going, keep striving, keep creating because even business has an artistry to it once you learn to understand the medium. This creative, this baker, this event host, this curious woman continues to work on brining forth a product and a solution that can possibly leave the world a little sweeter and more connected than before.
Thank you for joining the adventure.
-Chef Leah