Via’s Cookies is Hiring!

Via’s Cookies Baker and Market Salesperson  

$19/hr Starting pay with room for growth

Part-Time

Start date ~ Mid February 

Via’s Cookies mission is to create delicious baked goods for people with and without food restrictions and to operate a company through a social justice lens. This means to give back to struggling communities. It also means to be an equal opportunity employer, and implement fair wage practices. We pride ourselves in being a safe space for LGBTQIA+ and BIPoC community members and being our authentic selves. We are currently entirely woman owned. 

Only apply for this job if you are committed to exalting justice and align with the values of giving to oppressed communities. We specifically donate 5% of our profits to struggling BIPoC and LGBTQIA+ college students. However, we also speak up on issues that span from climate change, to human rights issues. 

Via’s Cookies is looking for a baker/market salesperson. This is currently a part-time role with room for more or less hours depending on events and the continued growth of the company. Owning a car is a requirement of this position, as there is travel within this job role. There is sometimes work on weekends. Schedule is somewhat flexible and can be crafted around your life with the exception of events. 

Job Duties:

Note: Via will guide you through how to perform all of these duties! Previous experience with these tasks is preferred but not required. 

• Prepares cookies- make dough, bake, & package

• Keeps inventory & picks up supplies

• Delivers orders

• Practices good kitchen hygiene 

• Works markets- farmers mkt, festivals, events

• This involves setting up the stand, selling the cookies, and tearing down. 

• Puts together and ships cookie boxes

• Takes pictures of cookies and setup for marketing use

Baking is Mondays & Thursdays from around 3:30pm-6:30pm depending on the amount of cookies. 

Attitude: 

Is open to the opportunity of growing with the brand. Ideally you are someone who has creative ideas and can enthusiastically sell our product. Must be willing to learn and be a good team player! 

Must be a friendly and welcoming person when in conversation with our customers and clients! Cookies make people happy, so it’s important that we are kind to those we work with. 

Note from Via: 

I am looking for someone who understands how important the cookies and brand are to me! It does have my name on it after all- so we need to sustain a good product and a positive brand image. And lastly, we want to maintain a joyful, kind, and fun working environment! 

Send your resume and reason why you believe you align with the Via’s Cookies values to:

viascookies@gmail.com

Via’s Cookies for Pride

Behind the Via’s Cookies brand is a greater mission- giving back to minority students who have faced adversity in their lives and are working to rise out of those struggles. Encompassed within the greater mission of helping struggling minorities is a plethora of intersections within people’s identities that can make navigating this social hell-scape a bit more difficult. Imagine being a woman, who is black, who is also a member of the Queer community. Firstly, you are discriminated against because of your skin color, then on top of that, you are facing sexism; and to put the icing on the cookie, if you reveal your gender identity in certain spaces, it could even mean death in certain cases. But , the threat of death is a moot point, because throughout history black women and men, and trans people, and Indigenous people, and -the list goes on- have died for simply living. So, there’s no longer a clear idea for us what should be hidden and/or feared because we could die sitting in our own house anyway.

Via’s Cookies for Pride. What does that mean? It means Via’s Cookies supports the LGBTQIA+ community whole heartedly. Today is the first day of Pride month, and we believe in the Queer community, our Trans beauties, our Lesbian baddies, all of our homies. And we will fight for equality on every level, whether we pull strings in the shadows or make our stance clear with the Pride flag on our packaging and the money we give to LGBTQIA+ students. We give you some of the best cookies in Ithaca, but we also offer you up our love and care, because we want to be there for you. Happy Pride. Be Gay. Do Crime*.

This Month, we are launching a special Pride box in partnership with three god tier Drag Queens you may know. Femme De Violet, The Real Noah Phence (say her name out loud, it’s fun), and Tilia Cordata! Keep your eyes peeled for the fun flavors inspired by these three baddies who are strong, amazing, and powerful in their art and their identities. Preorder a box so you can support our cause… and me! The woman behind it with all of these crazy intersections to my identity that put a target on my back especially as I grow my brand and gain more exposure. It’s scary out there, but we’ll stand strong in our right to exist and fight back until the day we die!

*We say do crime not because we want you to rob a store, but because it is a crime in many places to embrace your gender identity.

Much love, Via

Via’s Decadent Dark Chocolate Cream Cookies

✿

I create my recipes from scratch, so like my other cookies, this recipe is something you’ve never had before! And excitingly enough, this time you get to make them! I wanted to go for something insanely rich, so I did two test batches, using greek yogurt in one, and cream cheese in another. And anyone can tell you just because of how flavor works, that the cream cheese recipe would prove much more decadent. The greek yogurt cookies, dare I say, taste like NOTHING. I would compare them to eating a piece of sweet bread. Here’s the recipe for the ones I liked, cream cheese!

I’ll give you a few extra tips at the end that can make your cookies even richer if you so choose.

I think these cookies will knock your socks off.

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Prep Time: 8 min ✯ Bake time: 8-10 min ✯ Total time: 30 min

🍪

Equipment: Baking cups, spoons, bowl, trays, knife, cutting board and mixing utensil.

Makes about 20 cookies!

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Via’s Decadent Dark Choc Cream Cookies

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup softened salted butter

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup plain cream cheese

2 1/2 cups all purpose bleached white flour

1/2 cup dark choc chips

1/2 cup semi-sweet choc chips, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375

Stir the sugar, salt, and baking soda in a bowl. Add the eggs, vanilla, softened butter and cream cheese and beat for about 1 minute or until thoroughly mixed.

Add flour cup by cup until dough reaches a solid and slightly sticky consistency.

Chop up semi sweet chips and pour both dark chocolate and chopped semi sweet chips into batter and mix.

Roll cookies into golf ball sized spheres and place on baking sheet with room for them to spread out as they bake. You can use parchment paper, or a good baking sheet that is non-stick. The cookies have enough butter that they should come off the pan cleanly.

Insert two baking sheets into the middle of the oven, one with the cookies on it, and another baking sheet with nothing on it on the rack underneath the sheet with cookies. (This is to keep the bottoms of the cookies from burning.)

Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes or until the tops have a nice golden brown appearance and they reach the gooeyness that you desire.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle some salt on top.

Let sit for about 8 minutes to cool down and solidify.

Enjoy!

Extras:

• Refrigerate unbaked dough overnight for even more decadent and chewy cookies.

• Swap out 1/2 cup flour with 1/2 cup cocoa powder for insanely rich, brownie-esque cookies

Why is there variation in baking time? - Well, ovens work differently! My home oven bakes my cookies much quicker than my commercial oven, so I am constantly adjusting baking time and temperature.

Learning to Love

Could I peel back the layers of my psyche? Break down the reinforced walls I had constructed from desperation, confusion and guilt? Could I hold myself like I wished I’d been held when things in the world were new to my unfocused eyes?

I picked up the red metal axe that sat in our snowy lawn and watched my breath curl into the air like smoke. I let my arms swing up over my head and then fall back down, gravity accompanying my tool. I sent two halves of a piece of wood flying in either direction. If I could take to that wall in my mind, like this axe- if I could chip away at that- then I could learn how to love myself. Love what I do; what I stand for; who I am and grow to love who I am becoming.

I did just that. I told the small coily haired childhood me, hiding among the stuffed animals on her shabby little shelf, that it was okay to come out. There’s nothing to hide from anymore, I said. And she took my hand. And I told her “I love you.” And I made sure to let her know she did not have to say it back. Because I knew that was hard too. I love you I love you I love you.

I cried for the 16 year old me, training herself beyond her limits and starving herself during school. Because she never cried for herself, for she’d been told it was weak and weak was not what she wanted to be.

And I pulled aside the 19 year old me, overseeing operations at a screen printing company in Brooklyn and being screamed at by her white male superior, that it was okay to value herself, her people, and her things. She could fight back. The world wouldn’t pull any punches, so why should she? Black woman anger scares people, but it was bubbling up within me.

And I told 20 year old me that she was not to blame for the actions of the people around her. And she did not owe her love to anyone else. And if she felt unsafe in a situation, someone who loved her would tell her to get out- and she needed to be that person.

And I picked up the embers of her creativity, glowing in her soul, and breathed into them, igniting the fire that would engender an empire of greatness. Whether that was a simple act of crafting a cookie that brought enough pleasure for each individual that they’d sell all across the land and lead money into the hands of others in struggle. Or if that just meant she’d paint pictures all day and watch the clouds slip across the sky. I would love her through whatever she wished to do, to embody, to be, as long as it was good for the earth, her and humanity.

Anger shed its skin and was sadness most of the time, and I let her feel that sadness now. It is okay to cry. And sadness fell away to wonder, and peace and joy, because she had crafted her life now. It was hers to hold.