Napa author and cookie baker Shane Willow Pittman has launched a new business, Cookies Too.
Shane Willow Pittman uses royal icing on her cookies in the same way that a painter layers acrylics on a canvas to create her edible works of art.
“Since I started decorating cookies I haven’t stopped," said Shane Willow Pittman, adding that her new cottage industry has given her a new artistic medium while she shelters in place.
"I consider my work to be an art form," Shane Willow Pittman said of her cookies.
In the last few months, as Californians have been told to stay home, Napa resident Shane Willow Pittman has been in her kitchen spearheading a bakery operation that has launched into an artisanal brand called Cookies Too.
The process of mixing ingredients, rolling dough, cutting each shape, and decorating fresh baked cookies by hand is a process that Pittman calls the expression of an art.
An author and illustrator, Pittman said her cottage industry is not just about baking or business but about having a new artistic medium.
Pittman was born in Japan and moved around as a kid while her father served in the U.S. Air Force. She spent years living in Syracuse, New York as a young adult where a company called Corso’s Cookies is headquartered. When Pittman was in her 20s, she brought her art portfolio to Corso’s and got a job decorating cookies.
Today, Pittman runs her own cookie factory at her home near Westwood Hills Park in Napa, and working from home has been enjoyable. “The smell — oh the smell of the cookies, the smell of the dough, of the cookies in the oven, of the icing — it’s so wonderful. It’s delicious.”
Pittman described having artistic sensibilities and an engineering mind explaining that her cookie creations are custom designs inspired by nature. “My inspiration for just about everything is nature — I’m fascinated by the engineering and geometry of the natural world and our connection to these systems. This informs everything I do.”
Three years ago, Pittman and her husband moved to Napa from Emeryville looking for a home with a yard suitable for outdoor living. “We found this house that is built into a hillside. We leave the doors and windows open, and we have all kinds of visitors — wild peacocks, fawns, hummingbirds — and these creatures are part of my designs.”
Baking day and night, Pittman added, “Since I started decorating cookies I haven’t stopped.” Pittman uses royal icing on her cookies in the way that a painter layers acrylics on a canvas. “I consider my work to be an art form,” she said. “It takes technique to get the colors and textures right, to create consistencies and visual effects with the icing.”
Determining how long just one of these cookies takes to make is complicated because Pittman decorates them methodically. “There are so many details, and I don’t want the icing to run together. When making a bee, for example, I might do the wings first, let that dry, and then add stripes and polka dots later on.”
The assemblage of various colors, sizes, and shapes is intended to evoke a narrative in the same way a collage does, she said. “When I’m decorating cookies, I like to convey a story on the platter.”
With Cookies Too, Pittman channels her creativity into a product meant to bring about joy, a satisfaction that she said cultivates her soul. “Anyone who knows me knows I wouldn’t be able to do anything—for any length of time, or at all—that isn’t soul expression.”
The baker discusses this philosophy in-depth in her first book, “Tend Your Own Garden,” which she published last year. She affirms her cookie start-up has been exactly that— a conscious cultivation of her soul with the purpose expressing and sharing joy.
“With Cookies Too, we are part of people’s gift-giving. We have customers who come for their personal stash of cookies. Others give the cookies as gifts to their loved ones, neighbors, or themselves — spreading love with the cookies I’ve made.”
Cookies Too has been warmly welcomed at the St. Helena Farmers’ Market. Selling cookies at the market has given Pittman and her husband a chance to converse with local residents.
“It’s been social — we’ve made friends. People are coming by every week to say ‘hi’ and buy cookies. I think we can all use a bit of fun and beauty right now, and that’s what the cookies do.”
Find Cookies Too and other local vendors at the St. Helena Farmer’s Market every Friday from 7:30 a.m. to noon. The market is temporarily located at 1088 College Avenue in the parking lot of the Napa Valley College Campus off of Pope Street in St. Helena. Facemasks are required for entry.
Cookie orders can be placed online. Locals can arrange times to pick up orders from the Pittman home. Orders are also delivered in Napa or packaged and shipped in the U.S.
For more information, visit cookiestoonapa.com, search “Cookies Too Napa” on Facebook or @cookiestoonapa on Instagram.
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July 21, 2020 at 01:15AM
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Edible art from Cookies Too - Napa Valley Register
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