Anne Hornstein (above right), owner of Kinowa’s Cowboy Cookies, bakes delicious cookies fresh for the Seaside Farmers Market. Photos courtesy Kinowa’s Cowboy Cookies
Anne Hornstein has been baking cookies since she was a little girl. “I can remember coming home from school and eating cookies and drinking milk,” she says. “This is still one of my favorite things — including dunking the cookies in the milk. I think there’s a memory of cookies and milk in everyone’s history so it brings out the kid in us.”
While living in Colorado, Hornstein met many cowboy cookie bakers. “It’s not something I coined,” she says. “But I think what makes it cowboy is the idea that whatever is in the chuck wagon — chocolate chips, raisins, nuts — that’s what’s going into the cookies today.”
At first, Hornstein used her baking talents as a hobby, giving cookies as gifts. Cheered on by a friend who encouraged her to sell them, she resisted until the Seaside Farmers Market opened. She spent her first Saturday at the market with one basket, walking along Central Square in Seaside.
Now, the Kinowa Cowboy Cookie brand has expanded to include something to suit every taste and every dietary need — including gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan and even paleo. While baking her delicious morsels, Hornstein spends her time dancing in the kitchen to everything from jazz to new age to classical.
Kinowa’s sells cookies with chocolate chips, oats, nuts, and a hint of coconut in bite sizes. The mostly organic ingredients include local cage-free eggs from Twin Oaks Farms and grass-fed butter from Ocheesee Creamery, also vendors at the Seaside Farmers Market. “I get the eggs and butter from happy chickens and happy cows,” she laughs, “which makes for happy cookies.” In addition, the cowboy cookies are made with organic flour, sugar, vanilla, nuts, oats and coconut.
For adventurous cookie connoisseurs, try the Peruvian recipe, with chocolate chips, coconut, oats, peppermint and a hint of cayenne. Or try the Rodeo, a large double dark chocolate almond cookie. The Guatemalan Cowboy, a gluten-free, sugar-free and paleo cookie, is loaded with nuts and coconut and sweetened with dates.
Place your order and pay upon receipt of the cookies when Hornstein makes her deliveries in Seaside at the Farmers Market. She accepts mail orders, too.
Visit Seaside Farmers Market online