The official Dancing Deer Baking Company Blog

I learned about the golden rule from two extraordinary entrepreneurs - my parents. They never used the words social responsibility or philanthropy nor did we have any money.  But every day they made the world a better place through positive and generous interactions with other people and the planet.  And every day I also took for granted that the somewhat smushed peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apple and homemade cookie in my lunch bag was a symbol of my Mom’s great big heart. They didn’t make a big deal about it, it was just normal for them to try to make something right, stretch out a hand or invent something which ought to be.  Among the things they managed to create was a whole industry for recycling post-consumer bottles and cans on an industrial basis.

There is a very long list of the many lovely ways (big and small) that they put their good energies to work. Their legacy and the daily compromises I make as a single working Mom, motivate me to do something bigger than turn a profit. We pack a little love and a little philosophy in to everything we do. It’s in our green packaging and in our Sweet Home Project to help homeless mothers.  It’s in the importance we place on dressing up in silly hats to celebrate everyone’s birthday and in finding the bits of fun which are just about everywhere if you’re determined to find them. It’s for lunch every day!

My real agenda is to use cookies to make positive change in the world.  The more I see of life the more convinced I am that spreading sweetness is a really big and very sophisticated idea, hokey and gee whiz as it may sound, and as important in business as in one’s personal life. The same values apply whether I’m doing something with my kids or my co-workers.  For me business is personal and love can be packed in a brown bag lunch or a trailer load of cookies.

From smallest girlhood,
well into teen years,
now with accelerating age,
cookies have comforted me.

My grandmother’s “receets”—
her only tangible legacy—
made chewy molasses cookies
a family legend.

Any self-respecting nutritionist
recommends a handful of oatmeal cookies
heavily laced with raisins
as a healthful breakfast.

Cookie-baking lessons are
the first for young cooks.
Holiday cookies decorated by small,
eager hands are treasured by all.

All chocolate addicts appreciate
that melting madness called “Toll House.”
At desperate times, some of us will
finish a batch from the bowl, unbaked.

Named “biscuit” by our British mothers,
accompanied by tea,
cookies are the highlight of a civilized day
or ought to be.

Children of careering mothers
will settle for an after-school
welcome—a treasure-hunting dive
into the cookie jar.

I’m still wearing on my small frame
the globular residue
of every comforting cookie
I ever ate.

Barbara J. Rios, Santa Cruz, California