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'Not just some cheap cookie' |
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By Betsy Rothstein
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Posted: 01/19/05 12:00 AM [ET] |
Monika Laws, a Democrat and former aide to then-Rep. Bill Brewster (D-Okla.), has no shame admitting that, on the rare occasion that she bakes her son anything, it comes from a box.
Terry Wigglesworth, a staunch Republican lobbyist, gasps audibly. She is, after all, a proud baker who brings her famous gourmet brownies and cookies to business meetings to smooth out potential friction. “It puts everyone at ease,” she says. “It builds trust. People have never been offended by this.” | | Patrick G. Ryan | | Terry Wigglesworth, left, and Monika Laws of Capitol Cookies LLC |
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| The exchange between the two women wouldn’t seem so odd except for the fact that, last May, the duo came together to launch Capitol Cookies LLC, a gourmet theme cookie company that sells everything from pink-frosted cherry-blossom cookies to red-white-and-blue-frosted donkeys and elephants to cookies cut into the shapes of the U.S. Capitol Dome, the White House, the Washington Monument and the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials.
The cookies can be frosted with either vanilla or chocolate. The cost is $3.50 per cookie, but they are often bought in bulk for a discount.
This week, 450 Capitol Cookies will be served to attendees of a White House inauguration event at the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington.
Inscribed on each cookie will be the words “Congratulations President Bush.” It isn’t much, but it is a start for a company still finding its bearings.
Laws, the company’s president, stresses that the cookies are free of preservatives and can be made into any shape — everything from an airplane to a museum to a tepee, a pill or, say, a Pfizer Viagra cookie.
“Whatever your imagination is, we can do it,” says Laws.
Wigglesworth is the vice president of marketing, and Karel Brewster, daughter of Rep. Brewster, is vice president of sales for Capitol Hill.
Laws and Wigglesworth show up at the Watergate Pastry shop last week to discuss their business, an appropriate set-ting, as it is the bakery that makes their cookies. Wigglesworth, a West Virginia native, has a bubbly, outgoing Southern personality, reminiscent of the TV series “Designing Women.” Aside from her newfound cookie company, she enjoys helping abused women as well as boosting women up the corporate ladder.
She takes off her coat to reveal a purple suit over a low-cut blouse. Her skirt bears a lengthy slit down the front. Initially, she seems self-conscious about it, smoothing it over with her hands, but laughs it off, saying, “I had breakfast with a bunch of guys, so they probably liked that.”
But back to the subject of cookies. “It’s not just some cheap cookie that doesn’t have any quality to it,” Wigglesworth says.
Cookies have come up in politics before. In the course of the 1992 presidential election, Hillary Clinton stopped off at a Chicago bakery where she was asked about the possible conflict between her law practice and her husband’s job as governor of Arkansas.
“I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas,” she told reporters. “But what I decided to do was fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life.”
During the recent election, cookies per se never came up, but the idea of being a stay-at-home mom did, when Teresa Heinz Kerry said first lady Laura Bush had never held a real job. Heinz Kerry later apologized. Ironically, when Kerry campaign aides were asked what food would be the favorite in a Kerry White House, they replied: chocolate-chip cookies.
When Laura Bush comes up in the conversation between Laws and Wigglesworth, things turn dicey.
Wigglesworth can’t sing her praises enough. Laws is more diplomatic. “The first lady’s place is behind her husband,” Wigglesworth says. “The country wants to see a first lady who is willing to take a back seat to her husband, providing a role where he can serve his best.”
Even so, she says, she’d seriously consider voting for Clinton if she ran for president, despite her remarks about baking cookies.
Laws, on the other hand, bristles slightly at Wigglesworth’s comments. “Women are at home doing wonderful things, baking cookies even,” Laws says. “But some are also working at home.”
In regards to Clinton’s comments on cookies, Laws says, “I personally don’t find offense in it. Does it apply to everyone? No.”
As for Laura Bush, Laws says her image as a supportive first lady who might stay home and bake cookies is working for her. “That is who she is and she should be honored and respected,” says Laws. “I think it’s working for Laura.”
Despite the fact that they belong to opposing political parties, the two women became friends in the mid-’90s while Laws was working for Brewster and handling energy issues and Wigglesworth was lobbying for the oil industry. Since then, they have bonded over mentoring women as well as balancing their lives between work and family.
And now, of course, they have their cookies.
Baking or not, Laws did come up with the idea for the company. About a year ago, she was driving with her then-3-year-old son around Washington when he looked up at the Jefferson Memorial and told her he thought the towering structure resembled a giant cookie.
Of course, her son wanted Laws to make the Jefferson Memorial cookie for him, to which Laws replied, “Oh no, but we can get someone to make it.”
For more information about Capitol Cookies, visit www.capitolcookies.com. |
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