These cookies are not what you think. You know there’s a story. If only I could hand you one to enjoy while you sit back and read.
Way back in 1992, I had what every deadhead would consider the “dream” job. I was the sales and marketing manager of a tie-dye company. Part of my job requirement included going “on tour” with the Grateful Dead to sell t-shirts and stickers. While my fellow deadheads were scrounging around trying to put together the necessary funds to follow their favorite band around the country, I was actually paid by my company to go on tour. All my expenses were paid (with the exception of tickets to the shows) as I drove my van from venue to venue following my favorite band back and forth across the United States and I was also paid my weekly salary. I honestly didn’t know what I had done in my past life to deserve this job, but I wasn’t going to screw it up.
Or so I thought.
One morning, I went to work and couldn’t get in the door. My key wouldn’t work. It seems the owner had changed the locks in the middle of the night. He had been approached by some shady characters that offered him beaucoup bucks for his little tie-dye operation and he jumped at the chance. But these folks had their own ideas about how the company should be run and their first matter of business was to get rid of all the current staff.
That meant me. My dream job went poof!
It is not one of my prouder moments, but soon I found myself at Social Services collecting food stamps. At that time, the County of Santa Cruz provided a single woman with $110 in food stamps a month. The good news was that I was a vegetarian even then so none of that money was going to have to be spent on steak. The better news was that all the farmers at the weekly farmers market were happy to take food stamps in exchange for their fresh organic produce. I got very good at stretching those stamps so far you might almost think they were made of rubber.
When the Grateful Dead toured, an entire band of gypsies followed them. From venue to venue they traveled, many of them hawking and selling various items to help pay their way from show to show. I always maintained that you could find just about anything you wanted in the parking lot of a Grateful Dead show. There were t-shirts, of course, but there was so much more. Every import from Guatemala and India could be found displayed on tarps, or in makeshift booths. Hand-beaded jewelry. Friendship bracelets. Bumper stickers and buttons. Bongs and pipes and papers.
Of course there were drugs. Lots of drugs. Whatever it was that you thought you might need, there was someone there to sell it to you.
Knowing all of this, I contemplated what it was that I could offer. I had sold jewelry in the past, as well as ashtrays. I knew both sold well, but there was the matter of having the initial capital. Since I didn’t have a job, I had no money. I was going to have to get creative.
There was a t-shirt on tour for many years that said, “Deadheads do it for four hours with only one break.” After four hours of gyrating in a tribal dance known only to those who are actually on the bus, one thing you can count on a deadhead being after a show is hungry. With my food stamps in hand, I went off to the local health food store in the hopes of finding the perfect antidote for all those grumbling stomachs.
Deciding that I would appeal to the crunchy, granola types (meaning the regular tour deadheads) rather than the frat boy types (meaning the boys who showed up at one venue only to score drugs and get wasted), I went the vegan organic route. It took me quite a few attempts, but I eventually came up with a fruit-juice sweetened, vegan organic chocolate chip cookie that tasted better than most traditional chocolate chip cookies. Using my food stamps to purchase all the ingredients, I made thousands of these cookies, put them in zip lock bags, and froze them. I dubbed them Clyde’s Cookies because Clyde sat at my feet on the kitchen floor and watched as every single batch went into the oven and came out of the oven. It was almost as if he was inspecting and approving each and every one.
When it came time to leave for Summer Tour, I took a thousand of the cookies and put them into one of my huge coolers. If sales went well, we could come back through Santa Cruz to restock on our way to Oregon. My plan was to sell these cookies for $1 a piece. I made a sign and put it on a big cardboard box and hoped for the best.
The thing about selling cookies at a Dead show is that it really does allow you to be mobile. You can move along with the people. You can easily take your goods where the people go. You can even bring your cookies into the show and feed people during the set break. That first night, I made $700. People would purchase one cookie, walk away and eat it, then track me down and buy a dozen more. By the time the show started on the second day, I was completely out of cookies, but I had made $1000. Donald Trump would be so proud!
That summer, I made over $8,500 in clear profit selling Clyde’s Cookies. By the time we got to the third venue in Eugene, people knew who I was and were already tracking me down in the parking lot. I didn’t have tickets to any of the shows that summer, but I got many of them in trade just for Clyde’s Cookies. I promise there wasn’t anything in them other than good old organic goodness and lots of love.
While back home in Santa Cruz, I had created and started my own recycling business, when I was on tour, Clyde’s Cookies continued to be a major money maker for me. That was until Jerry died and the Dead stopped touring. (We'll save my anguish over that for another day). It was the that I decided that I would start a “real” cookie business and sell them to local health food stores. I went through all the necessary licensing and paperwork and secured a commercial kitchen. I figured out the distribution logistics and all my manufacturing costs down to the penny. The recipe was still in my head (I have never written it down), but I figured in the beginning I would be the only one making them anyway and there was no need to share it.
Just as I was about to launch my new business, I got epilepsy. I was plagued by grand mal seizures on a daily basis and could barely move from the couch. I wasn’t allowed anywhere near an oven or stove because of the chance that I might have a seizure and seriously injure myself. My dream of being the Vegan Mrs. Fields was dashed.
So now, I just make these cookies for my family and friends. Although, since I’m currently unemployed, I’ve toyed with whipping up a big batch and taking them down to Pacific Avenue and selling them for a dollar. I took them tonight to a New Moon gathering here in Santa Cruz and many of the women there told me I should be selling them to stores. Which I know I could do. The choices I’ve made in my life in the last twelve years, however, have taken me in so many other directions. I do love the look of amazement on people’s faces when I tell them they are eating a vegan cookie. One that is fruit-juice sweetened. One that might, gasp, be good for them.
Clyde’s Cookies are good for you. And a great reminder that when we want something bad enough, we’ll always find a way.
So, who wants some?
