These cookies have a cause: They help others find a recipe for cheer in their lives
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Last-Minute Holiday Guide
Christmas is just around the corner. Here’s where to buy last-minute gifts on Christmas Eve in Sacramento, how to plan ahead for New Year’s Eve and more.
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These cookies have a cause: They help others find a recipe for cheer in their lives
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The spirit of Christmas means different things to different people. To some, it’s religious. To others, it’s about spreading cheer wherever one goes. To a few, it’s at the core of a 2015 TV movie with that very name, about a frigid attorney who tries to sell a rustic Canadian inn and falls in love with the 100-year-old ghost haunting it.
To me, it’s about generosity, about giving to your loved ones as well as those less fortunate. That spirit is embodied at Kelli’s Cookies-For Goodness Bakes, a not-for-profit bakery at 605 Douglas Blvd. in Roseville.
Kelli Ridenour first opened the business in 1998 as Kelli’s Gourmet Cookies but changed the name and focus in 2017 after taking in a young adult who had aged out of the state’s foster youth program, according to brochures inside the bakery.
Kelli’s Cookies now employs mostly 18- to 24-year-olds, many of them former foster youths. Volunteers help as well and teach the younger employees life skills such as financial management, resume writing and self-defense. Giving back doesn’t stop within Kelli’s four walls: The store’s Random Acts of Kindness Program delivers cookies to nonprofits, people experiencing homelessness, seniors and underprivileged schools in the greater Sacramento area.
The cookies aren’t bad, either. The pumpkin pecan white chocolate cookie was so popular Ridenour kept it on the menu year-round, while one called “glacier mint” reimagines the Girl Scout classic in a heartier, fudgier light. I can’t recall seeing a breakfast cookie anywhere else in Placer County (soy protein powder, Kashi Go Lean cereal, walnuts, oatmeal and raisins make for a sweet start to the day one won’t regret). Gluten-free and sugar-free options are also available, as are chocolate-covered pretzel sticks and doggie cookies.
This isn’t exactly a recommendation for the holidays, as Kelli’s Cookies is slammed right now. It’s an idea to tuck away for the rest of the year, when you might need a sugar rush and a little Christmas spirit out-of-season. Donations are also accepted via PayPal.
What I’m Eating
I can’t overstate how refreshing it is to see “tacos and burritos available upon request” tacked on at the bottom of a Mexican restaurant’s menu. I love ‘em as much as any other native Californian, but there’s so much more to the nation’s cuisine than those two items, as Mezcalito Oaxacan Cuisine illustrates.
Ruben Regalado and Blanca Garcia’s 4-year-old restaurant at 5065 Pacific St. in Rocklin (a sister location in Folsom closed earlier this year) instead specializes in dishes like “Oaxaca’s favorite” ($17). Petaluma Poultry’s Rocky free-range chicken is smothered in mole rojo, mole verde or (my choice) estofado, a creamy orange mole I found to be simultaneously tangy and earthy. It was complex, like any good mole, and left me wanting more. Beans, rice and a carrot flower were included, as with all entrees.
Another regional specialty, the tlayuda ($13), was more simple but still tasty — no wonder, given its American nickname “Oaxacan pizza.” A large, crispy fried tortilla served as the base for a black bean spread, stringy queso blanco, spinach, tomato slices, cabbage and avocado, plus a choice of meat for $3 more. I went for cecina, a thin cut of pork loin marinated in a house adobo seasoning.
One of the few on-menu taco options, tacos de rajas ($15 for two), was generously filled with poblano peppers and avocado and made for a decent vegetarian option. Still, I’ll come back more for dishes like the first two or to try Mezcalito’s California-ized take on tasajo ($18), a traditional Oaxacan thin-cut beef dish done here with tri-tip.