A former New York lawyer, Jodie Newman decided to use her interest in baking to take a sweeter career path.
After a move to Gainesville, she founded Jodie's Cookies in 2002, which she has now expanded into Cookie Rush, a larger-scale delivery business.
Cookie Rush works with Gatorfood.com to deliver cookies from 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.
The cookies have been available on Gatorfood.com since early October, she said, ranging from ,5 for two to ,22 for a dozen.
The four-inch cookies come in four varieties: Fat & Happy Chocolate Chip, Soft Sugar Snickerdoodle, Chewy Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Toffee.
"We wanted to perfect the operation of this Cookie Rush business with just the four traditional gourmet cookies," she said, though she's sold other types and flavors in the past.
Newman has been baking since she was a kid, she said, originally making cookies for her friends and brother.
She started Jodie's Cookies in 2002 at the urging of her then-neighbor, Kelly Harris, owner of Kelly's Kreations, an Alachua gift-basket company.
"I would ask, 'Can you make leaf-shaped cookies for my fall baskets or flower-shaped cookies for my spring baskets?' And she just took that creativity and ran," Harris said.
Harris still orders cookies for her baskets and cookie bouquets from Newman, she said.
Jodie's Cookies, which Newman sold at local businesses, gave her a Gainesville following.
The cookies are still sold at Ward's Supermarket, where Natural Foods manager Russ Welker said they get two deliveries a week of about six-dozen cookies.
"They sell very well," he said. "People look forward to the delivery."
The cookies are made at The Flour Pot Bakery in Tioga, where bakers trained by Newman pump out batches of 300 to 500 cookies a few times a week, depending on orders.
She often tries out her recipes on her husband and three children, ages 3, 5 and 7.
"They're young, so the whole concept of buying my cookies anywhere else is a little strange for them," she said.
