Cookie Drive!

Ha ha! Check it out! Cookies are comin' your way. Check Brian's myspace page for tour dates and go to hear some GREAT music, and eat cookies. Come on now... does it get any better?

Nice Article!

I love it when people write about us. Makes me go, "Ahhh..."

Work Soft

Yes, I have a new philosophy - it only took me about twelve years to figure it out. Work soft is what I am naming it and trust me, you will all want to adopt it as your own.
In my family, if you're not working hard then you are basically wasting your life. The "working hard" approach is not exclusive to my job, it spans across everything I "do" in my life. I hold a belief that if something doesn't take an excruciating amount of energy then it doesn't hold weight.
In other words, it has to hurt in order to have worth.
Let's flip the whole idea around then - what if work could be pleasurable?
What if I do things in my life not because I HAVE to, but because I can or choose to.
My work soft philosophy recently bloomed while I was in Vancouver. I was bustling around the city feeling all stressed out and rushed. I had to stop myself and take a breath. I realized that life is supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be enjoyed. How I live is up to me. Intriguing, eh?
So this is my new challenge; I am changing my approach. Let's see if taking things in stride, enjoying the moment, and not worrying about the future actually does work...
As always, I will keep you posted.

xo baker babe

Cookies on The Coast

Big dreams have come true folks!! I am more than proud to say that New Moon cookies are now available in Vancouver at Whole Foods Market. The two locations that are carrying them are: the new Cambie St. location at 510 West 8th Avenue, and the West Vancouver location at 925 Main St.

I will be sampling cookies all week:

Tuesday in West Van: 1pm-5pm

Wednesday on Cambie: 11am-3pm

Thursday on Cambie: 4pm-8pm

Friday in West Van: 11am-3pm

So come on by and eat some cookies and meet Baker Babe, ha ha!

ps - those are mountains behind the cookies...

There's a New Mack in Town!

New cookie! New cookie! New cookie!

That's right people. I said NEW COOKIE! We have outdone ourselves this time by creating a gluten-free double-chocolate coconut number named Mackie. We tested this recipe for almost a year and are proud to finally see it out and about, happy in its cute little bag. I gotta say, I love these cookies. Mmmm Mackie...

Now get out there and get yourself some. While they're hot of course.

A Girl and Her Bagels

I've been secretly (shhhh) reading Gwyneth Paltrow's blog. It's called goop and on it she posts all kinds of things for the modern girl to do. Like - spend thousands of dollars a night at the Ritz Carlton or buy a pair of Louboutins or go on a detox. I tried the detox - it was good :)

I can dream about her life, I guess, or I can live my own. How many cookies would I have to sell to spend a night at the Ritz Carlton in Paris? Many thousands...

But you know, reading her blog got me kind of inspired to start changing up my blogging. I LOVE traveling and dining out and doing cool things. Plus, I am extremely picky (don't you know that 'Baker Babe Approved' means: EVEN Eden likes it) so I figure my opinion is worth something.

So here it is - entry number one: A Girl and Her Bagels, or Eden's Business Trips to Montreal

I love Montreal. Love it love it love it. I used to dislike it strongly but that was when my ex lived there. Now it is my town. I had this dream for years to sell the cookies in Montreal but was so afraid of the language barrier and the french labelling guidelines that I put it off. Last August I decided to just go for it, french or no french.

Since then I have opened a dozen accounts through the city - with the most lovely retailers - and I have gone to visit and to my sales work there a few times since. 

When I travel I am all about finding the best and making a city a ritual for myself.

Here is a slice of life in Montreal for Baker Babe.

I've stayed in a few B&B's, but just recently found my favorite! Casa Bianca, which is right across from the mountain and close to everything. Coffee at Cafe Sociale or Olympico in the Mile End district. If you are a soup lover like me and find soup the perfect lunch then you MUST go to Soup Soupe. Do some shopping on St. Denis and be sure to treat yourself at Bella Pella. If you're looking for a bigger treat go to M0851 for amazing montreal-made goods.

Dinner at Maiko, the Continental, or Chez L'Epicier (my new fave), polished off with a long walk to burn off the calories.

Then just do your people watching. Montreal is the secret affair of anyone from Toronto. It's dirtier, grittier, more romantic, and chock full of incredible desserts. Please don't forget to eat chocolate eclairs. It's a must.

xo BB

Cookies on the Mountain

Have I told you lately that I love my job? Well - here it is: I LOVE my job.
If you had asked me ten years ago what my dream job is I would have told you that it was to be able to travel with my work. So that is now what I get to do. Woo Hoo!!
Last week I went to BC to wear my salesgirl cap and pitch the cookies to some stores out there.
It was a blast; driving around in a rental car with a broken GPS, getting to know the streets of Vancouver, and taking the cookies on a road trip.
I don't want to leak the good news just yet - but let's just say that all you hopeful Vancouver-ites who have emailed asking for cookies - well, you are soon to be in luck.

Ruthless Compassion is the Name of the Game

Out of all the myriad tasks that being a boss entails - the hardest and most uncomfortable, the most dreaded - is having to let someone go.
We have a staff of 7 people - so as you can imagine, it's pretty intimate. When someone becomes part of the team, they become PART of the team. We're a community.
I operate my business from two very strong archetypes - the mother and the hunter.
In my true nature, I am both nurturing and ruthless. If that sounds like a paradox - believe me, it is. I am often at odds with myself - to be in business, I have to be willing to be ruthless and determinate, I have to make the decisions that are best for the growth and integrity of the business. Sometimes this means doing things that others find "cold". That's just the way the cookie crumbles. And sometimes I hesitate on making decisions because the mother in me knows that someone's feelings will be hurt.
Every time I have made the choice to let someone go - I have ruminated and stressed for days over it; I defend them in my mind, I doubt my decision, I think I am being unreasonable etc... In truth - I don't want to be "unliked", I don't want to be the bearer of bad news and put someone out of work.
But as my consultant once said to me - "People ask to be fired, whether they know it or not".
In most cases this is true. I think that sometimes people grow unhappy in their jobs and don't even realize it. In my experience, when someone is unhappy in their job their work performance goes down the toilet (obviously).

What am I saying here? Perhaps I am defending myself. Perhaps I am clearing out my conscience. Really I think I am stating what feels like a challenge: building a business from these two very strong roles in myself - being the nurturing, caring "mother" and also being the ruthless "hunter" who will do whatever it takes to manifest her dream.
In the end - balance is what always seems to rule, finding the happy medium, being "both".
I aim to be fair, and not to make irrational decisions. But I tell ya - some nights I lie awake in bed with my stomach in knots over the things I know I have to do.

Gone to Market

I heard someone once say that it's wise not to pass off a job until you know how to do it yourself.  This is the way it seems to go for the Entrepreneur. 

I started as a baker, and boy, did I bake. Simultaneously I delivered, book-kept, was an expert dishwasher, salesgirl, you name it - I did it.  

Having done all the jobs, I knew better how to train other people to do them, and this has always been empowering for New Moon.  

In essence, I've had to create all the roles in the business by "living" them myself. 

Now I am on to a whole new game - a job that feels so unknown to me. I am now Head of Marketing. 

Marketing? Where do I even begin? It feels like the most massive undertaking, and yet it has been happening since Day 1. New Moon has always had a face, a reputation, a relationship with the world. But now I am in a position to take it to the next level - to get to the core of what we are really about and what we want to achieve - then deliver it to the public. 

Believe me, it is proving to be quite an amazing experience so far because I am taking a good look at New Moon from the outside.  In some ways, the marketing tools I've been using are limiting what our next stretches could be. And in other ways it is these exact tools which have brought New Moon to where it is.

Which do I expand on and which do I let go of? And which ones will I cultivate?

How do I let the "world" know that we make the best cookies, and that we are also a really awesome business?

How do I incorporate my "beliefs" into a box of cookies?

In other words, New Moon is now a teenager. Almost 12 years old, and you know how teenagers are - they want to make friends, experience the world, become "their own person".

I think it's a pretty cool time in the course of a business - I'm excited to put my creative juices into it and see what comes out.

And to tie this all back to the start - I think the fact that I scrubbed pans for years makes me an educated "Marketer" because I know the guts of my business.  

Maybe I'll hold a pan-scrubbing contest - free cookies for a year to the best dishwasher.

New Moon Kitchen Bares It All

I am dedicating this post to those of you (us) out there who seek to learn about a company by "googling" it. Maybe you are coming up to this post right here because you googled "new moon kitchen" and here we are!!

And maybe you scrolled through the pages on your screen and found some terrible things posted about us...

I want to set the record straight! And if you have no idea what I am talking about then welcome to storytime on my blog, this week's story is called "How some people are out to get you for no good reason".

Back in September or October one of my staff sent some cookies to a blogger in Oakland, CA. She writes a blog about vegetarianism and food etc...

She got our cookies - sent an email asking "what is in the chocolate chips you use?"

we wrote her back with the ingredients of the chips: sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor, soy lecithin, vanillin.

Next thing we know she posted a blog saying that we use "petrochemicals and charred animal bones" in our cookies...

NOW HOLD UP - you can only imagine my SHOCK and horror to be reading this stuff about my beloved little cookies. So I write back to her and give her the facts about the chips we use, that they are made by one of the very best chocolate manufacturers in the world, Barry Callebaut, and that the chips do not contain any petrochemicals or charred bones.

Funny thing was, even after we sent the info to her she wouldn't post it on her blog, she was deleting our feedback comments.

Then we got a call from Treehugger which is an online site devoted to ethical and green living.

They got a "tip" about this person's blog and wanted to hear the story from our side.

I was interviewed by treehugger  and they wrote this great, non-biased article about the whole thing.

I was infuriated by it all - if it hadn't happened to me I would think it great fodder for discussions about the power of the "information age" but how information can be spread without facts. I even checked about getting the information taken off the web (because it is false - as you will see if you read through the associated links) but google won't take info off unless they receive a court order to do so.

After all is said and done, let me explain what caused the blogger's little tantrum.

We make 11 products. 4 of our products contain chocolate chips. The ingredient labelling on our packaging says "semi-sweet chocolate chips (dairy-free)". At the time when we had our packaging designed, it was not a requirement to list the ingredients of ingredients for a chocolate chip.

The chips we use are kosher parve, nut-free, and vegan. The sugar in them was not processed with the use of animal bones for bleaching the sugar. There is no petrochemical in the vanillin.

AND we have since switched to a different Barry Callebaut chip that uses pure vanilla.

Some of you may not care about any of this, and some of you may - that's why I'm posting this; to clear up any confusion, and to clear our name.

Now what did I learn from all of this? What little nugget of knowledge can I share...

That revenge is a low level of energy exchange and does nothing to make any kind of change in the world. So instead of "fighting" back I decided to keep on making cookies, running my company well, and just plain got over it. 

Or let's say it another way - if you have a choice to feed the negative or the positive - which one do you go for? Which one do you want to see grow?

If any of you readers or consumers have any questions about all this- please do let me know!

xo Eden