Our Story

How did I get here?

I wake up most mornings and ask myself, “How did I get here??” Because the thing is, I
don’t even like baking. I mean, I don’t dislike it. I’m just not in love with it the way most
folks might assume I am.

Want to know what I am in love with?? Flavor … creativity… experimentation! Using
food as a way of pushing our personal boundaries and simultaneously as a way of
creating connection over a shared experience.

Had you asked me in 2022 if I’d ever own a company where that passion for interesting
and exciting food could be unleashed, I would have looked at you like you had lost your
mind. And yet, somehow, other folks saw the possibility even before I did.

Every year around the holidays, I’d bake a bunch of cookies for friends and colleagues.
Most people don’t know this, but it was kind of a competition – this year’s me vs last
year’s me with the goal being to outdo last year’s me. It got to the point where I was
making 30 different kinds of cookies – recipes collected from cookbooks and
magazines. And every year, someone would inevitably say, “These are so good. You
should sell your cookies.” To which I would inevitably reply, “That’s very kind of you.
BUT… it’s too much work to do more than once a year AND I can’t be out here slinging
Betty Crocker’s cookies! They’re not even my recipes.”

As we all know, timing is everything. And, in early 2023, I was looking for a change. I
loved my job, but I could tell it was time to move on. Nonprofit fundraising can be both
exhilarating and exhausting, and I was maybe a tad burnt out.

So, when someone said, “You should sell your cookies,”

I actually responded with, “Huh. What if? What if I did sell my cookies?” Cue the exploding head emoji.

It was as though the whole universe unlocked, and I knew instinctively what to do and
how to do it. We need butter, lots of it, I thought. My fave cookies from the holiday
cookie-thons had always been the shortbread with their uncanny ability to not only hold
but amplify flavor. If I was going down this road, I knew I wanted to stake some new
territory. Carve a piece out that could be my own (maybe that competitive streak kicking
in again?)

And, what was purely a practical decision – the only cookie cutter I had in the house
was heart-shaped – turned out to be perfect symbolically for what I wanted to create –
and the labor of love that was at the root of it all.

So naturally, I did what any self-respecting data nerd would do - I gathered a group of
cookie-loving colleagues to join my not-so-double-blind study. Every “Test Kitchen
Tuesday,” I’d show up at the office with a new batch of experimental cookies, my
excitement bubbling over as I bounced from building to building on my delivery route.

I was having so much fun playing in the kitchen, that even when colleagues didn’t like a
particular flavor, I was still grinning from ear to ear that they had even tried it! And just
as important – they were having fun, too. I was hooked.

A month into my cookie experiments, the universe handed me yet another gift.

I was at a fundraising conference dinner in NYC, chatting with a colleague who just
radiates warmth about something completely unrelated to cookies, when she suddenly
looked at me and said:

“Teresa, you’re just all heart.”

For a split-second, I looked at her dumbfounded, and then my hands slapped the table,
and I leaned forward and said, “O.M.G. I think you just found the name of my company!”
The double meaning was too, shall we say, chef’s kiss? It captured not just what the
cookies looked like (yes, all of our cookies are heart-shaped!), but the joy and warmth I
wanted to share with every single bite.

And just like that, I found myself on a new path – one that felt so different from
the journey I’d been on, yet somehow familiar at the same time.

Food is one of the greatest connectors of all time. Growing up with a foodie mom, family
gatherings almost always centered around food. Deciding to start this cookie company
wasn’t chance. It was deeply rooted in the idea that food is love, food is connection.
Every time someone tries one of my cookies, I’m legit holding my breath. Even with the
more straightforward flavors like Chipwich and Caramel Pretzel, I’m watching their face,
waiting to see if they light up.

And when they do? Pure joy and instant connection. It’s what drives me and keeps me
rolling, and cutting, and baking, and icing – even when I think I can’t possibly make
another cookie!