Late one frigid Ohio night, Denise Capers hungered for something sweet.
“I would pay someone to bring me cookies and milk right now,” she thought to herself.
On Valentine’s Day, Capers’s initial impulse blossomed into something much greater, when Cookies on Call was born.
The cookie delivery service offers a plethora of options, from old standards like chocolate chunk, oatmeal raisin and peanut butter, to more unusual cookie fare like white chocolate macadamia nut and M&M. Soon even vegans will be served, with a dairy-free alternative.
Adventurous types might want to check out the “creamy dreamy fried zinger,” which Capers described as “something you will either love or hate.”
“It’s basically a gooey, creamy, crunchy cookie, like a deep-fried twinkie,” she added.
Cookies on Call offers three basic options. “The Snack Pack” includes nine large cookies and costs $10.
“The Party Pack” yields 20 cookies and costs $18. For $20, cookie connoisseurs can order “the special occasion cookie,” a customized cookie, which requires a 24-hour notice.
Of course, no cookie would be complete without milk, and Capers sells this as well — 2% and skim for $1 and chocolate for $1.25.
Capers hopes to capitalize on people’s nocturnal cravings. Delivery is free anywhere in Oberlin seven days a week, including weekdays from 6 p.m. to midnight and weekends from 6 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.
“We’re here for all your late-night munchie means,” she said.
The whole process takes place in the evening, beginning after Capers’s job at Dascomb ends. Cookie baking goes into a low rumble after dinner and deliveries are sent out to the hungry hordes after 10 p.m., when most of the orders come in.
The whole family gets involved. Capers’s daughter designs the advertising, and her son and husband help with the deliveries. The cookies themselves come from the family’s own list of favorites.
In fact, Capers sees her customers as a sort of extension of her family.
“I look at you guys as my children, and so I’m providing cookies to you as a surrogate mother,” she said.
The response of a few students suggests that there may be such a desire for a stand-in mom’s home-baked cookies.
“They’re crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside; just the way I like them,” junior Elise Rindfleisch remarked with satisfaction after a recent delivery.
On board the Safety and Security shuttle, driver and senior Kim Mosby needed just one word to express her feelings for the cookie she was eating.
“Phenomenonal,” she said, before taking another bite.
One College Junior was more hesistant in her praise.
“I shouldn’t be eating them, but they are really good,” she remarked.
It is the rare individual who would willingly resist something as tasty as a cookie hot out of the oven, a fact that Capers knows well.
“I know the comfort of a good cookie,” said Capers. “What kind of a person wouldn’t eat a cookie?”