That's good enough for Meadville: Cookie Walk takes place Friday

Feb. 2—Inside a Water Street bakery on Wednesday, sugar cookies were being dipped and sprinkled, freshly made raspberry sauce was filling the small impression on rows of thumbprint cookies, and powdered sugar was dusting the nooks and crannies of lemon crinkle cookies.

It was, in other words, business as usual for Kristen's Kookies, 813 Water St., but the usual business this week includes more than 1,500 cookies headed for nearby businesses — and for nearby tummies.

With the smell of baking cookies filling the production room, the cookies already tasted not just good, but almost intoxicating, according to a Meadville Tribune investigation into the situation. But even with the taste adjusted as desired, the cookies still needed those finishing touches.

"They have to be visually appealing, too," said Kristen Boyles, the bakery's owner. "We take extra care in doing all that stuff because we want them to look good. We want them to taste good and we want them to look amazing, too."

All of the cookies to be available during the Cookie Walk on Friday are individually packaged and produced in commercial kitchens, according to organizers.

Kristen's Kookies is supplying cookies for about half of the organizations participating in the Cookie Walk, Boyles said. Each participant will offer a different variety. Highlights include the raspberry thumbprints at Indigo Boutique & Botanica, 945 Market St. Though they're small, the treats are labor-intensive, Boyles said, citing the signature sauce made with fresh raspberries. At the other end of the cookie spectrum were the mini-monster cookies being prepared for the Green Shoppe, 243 Chestnut St., which contain just about every sort of treat besides fruit.

The cookie craziness will begin at the Meadville Market House, event coordinator Heather Fish said. Participants can pick up official boxes to collect their cookies and can also get maps that will guide them to the participating locations, all within an easy walk from the Market House.

Requiring the cold-weather trek from shop to shop not only brings potential customers out during a typically slow period in the year for local businesses, it also injects at least a minimum of physical exertion as participants pursue what one well-known cookie aficionado has labeled a "sometimes food."

Not only will participants burn some calories on their Cookie Walk, they'll likely find themselves considering some deeper cookie-related questions, according to Fish.

The Cookie Walk is not the place to find chocolate chip conventionality, after all. Instead, participants will find treats unlikely to be seen in the grocery store cookie aisle — sweets that raise the question, what is the essence of a cookie? How does one define cookie-ness?

"Chateau Christine is always breaking the rules," Fish said by way of example. This year, the shop at 246 Chestnut St. will offer visitors Butterfinger corn puffs. Are they cookies? The answer is not so simple, but the taste more than makes up for any dilemma that may be raised.

"There are some that are questioning, what is a cookie?" said Fish, who will offer biscochitos from New Mexico at Hatch Hollow, 245 Chestnut St. "Does it have to be baked to be a cookie? They're going outside of the box a little bit."

Participants, however, are required to remain squarely within the official event box when collecting their cookies. Most locations will have about 15 dozen cookies to hand out, and while that sounds like a virtually endless supply, it's not — especially when cookie lovers come out in the cold to hurry from shop to shop in search of sweetness.

The best place to fill those boxes may very well be Indigo Boutique and The Apothecary at Indigo, where owner Leslie Flint will host three additional organizations that are located outside easy walking distance.

With enough space to host others, Flint gets the chance to turn the event into a group effort that spreads awareness and creates "a longer table, not a taller wall."

In addition to the raspberry thumbprints and chai cookies that Indigo will provide, visitors will be able to enjoy three other varieties provided by Vision Source Meadville, VisitCrawford, and Crawford County Drug and Alcohol Executive Commission.

"It's a really great event to bring everybody together and to not set any expectations as far as spending money," Flint said. "Money is really tight with everybody right now, including small businesses, but this is just a great way for us to say, 'We're still here, come visit.'"

Mike Crowley can be reached at (814) 724-6370 or by email at mcrowley@meadvilletribune.com.