Pop-Up Shop: Huele A Wela's Will Have You Craving Cookies

A local pop-up cookie company will have you craving cookies. Today, we talked to Laurie, the founder of Huela A Wela's Gourmet Cookies.

Lori Wallace: So you started this during COVID. Laurie, tell me a little bit about how this all happened.

Lori Diaz: So when COVID went and went down, everybody started trying to figure out what they were going to do stay busy, I had to figure out what to do to stay busy and how to live. So I started baking and offering up my cookies and Huela A Wela's was born.

Lori Wallace: OK, now you started with just this chocolate chip here. And then it's

grown from there.

Lori Diaz: it has. So this is my O.G. salted chocolate chip cookie, we now offer it with multiple flavors, peanut butter, chips, toffee, and walnuts. And now we're getting ready to serve our soft-bake peanut butter cookie with a little...bit of Cypress sea salt that we get locally from the spicery here in town.

Lori Wallace: And you mentioned locally because, during COVID, you've really found time to collaborate with a lot of these other local artisans that have kind of done the same thing. They've come up with a new crafter and COVID.

Lori Diaz: Absolutely, it's important for us to collaborate because I mean, during this time, everything was so limited. So we had to support each other, especially here in town. So West Elm, which is where we're at right now, has been kind enough to offer us a space to host our next pop-up, which is on March 20. And this is where we'll be selling some cookies. And they actually do this every Saturday, which I think is fantastic. They do local artisans, and their offerings and their wares every single Saturday from 12 to three.

Lori Wallace: It's a great way to get your name out there considering during COVID a lot of events and things like that, that you probably would have liked to, you know, show up and participate in aren't happening,
correct?

Lori Diaz: We used to do pop-ups at some of their local breweries. And as the limitations have happened, that's really been reduced. So this is just a great opportunity for us to safely socially distance. We ask that you all come in wearing your mask, be respectful of rules, and we can get some cookies.

Lori Wallace: What goes into these cookies, what makes them different, what makes them so good?

Lori Diaz: First of all, I steep my own vanilla at home. So vanilla that's in this cookie was actually steeped a year ago in my house, I use different chocolate on top of the cookie, so you're gonna get this completely different vibe, you get a really rich dark chocolate. And then some of the sea salt just breaks up some of the richness. Everything that I get I source as close to home as I can -- my eggs, my butter, I really try to keep it local.

Lori Wallace: How has this been for you now that it's been almost a year that you've been at it, seeing it grow the way it's had? You're on Facebook, you're on Instagram, so you get all those social media platforms.

Lori Diaz: It's exciting, especially when we go out and people go, oh my god, you're the cookie lady. It just makes me giggle because if you would have told me a year ago that that's what people would be calling me in the streets, it wouldn't have been that.