We braved the heavy rains and buses with the girls today to make a trip to One Girl Cookies over on Dean Street. It’s a charming, inviting storefront and Dawn and Dave, the owners, were kind enough to email us and invite us over for a chat. Not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon. With a tour of the kitchen, some treats from their wonderful line of 2-bite cookies, and plenty of advice and encouragement, we left their cozy shop dreaming of the possibility of owning our own space one day. Although I am sure it complicates business operations (mainly costs and overhead), all we could see was how easier life would be if we had access to a kitchen whenever we needed to bake without having to watch the clock and haul supplies and food back and forth to our hourly rented commercial kitchen. But one step at a time…and we’ll have to pay our dues. They gently warned what I’ve been thinking a lot about these days: sustaining this momentum that we seem to be riding on recently. While there have been a flurry of activity lately, the challenge is to keep it going long term.

Lots to chew on, but one of the nicest things to have come out of starting this business is the myriad of people we have met. We used to go out a lot before we had kids and socialized with other foodies in the restaurant biz, getting comped meals at 3 star restaurants and the like, but when Mark started working days, that sort of thing stopped since chefs tend to socialize late at night after the restaurants close down. We haven’t felt a part of the food scene in a long time so it’s been really nice to get re-acquainted, but from a totally different perspective and even on a more local, Brooklyn level - lots of small artisan bakers, chocolatiers, and specialty food producers. Everyone has their own story and path to how they got there, and everyone has been so supportive of each other. Makes you want to keep on going.