Nibbles + Bites

One Smart Cookie by Karel Bond Lucander photography by Jamie Cowles

Red’s Scratch Made in Mooresville finds a winning formula

Robin Goodrich opened Red’s Scratch Made in December 2019.

Redhead Robin Goodrich has loved baking cookies for as long as she can remember. Her mom’s chocolate chip cookies were highly sought after and together they would make them as gifts for friends.

“When I was younger, I would bake all the time with my mom,” says Goodrich. “Then as an adult I stopped for a while. One day I had a wild hair to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie. I tried 10 different recipes in one day and made 100 batches. I came up with my own recipe, but I’ll never think it’s perfect enough!”

Apparently, cookie monsters beg to differ.

Goodrich opened Red’s Scratch Made on Dec. 11, 2019 and now bakes thousands of cookies during a good four-day week (her shop is open Wednesday through Saturday). She also fulfilled her

The store, located in downtown Mooresville, is open Wednesday through Saturday.

first large corporate holiday order this past December. A large shipping company contracted with her to produce 450 dozen cookies to distribute to their clients throughout the country.

“The decision makers were brainstorming about client gifts and one of them works in Charlotte,” says Goodrich. “He happened to stop by and try my cookies. The group asked him to get more cookies for his family; if they liked them, he should order. He called me the next day and placed the order.”

Bake shop grows organically

This humble, upbeat former hair stylist and Mooresville native began Red’s Scratch Made organically. She would bake cookies and post pictures of them on Facebook and Instagram. Before long, people were reaching out to order her cookies.

And then in October 2018, her boyfriend’s sister invited Goodrich to host a cookie booth at Southern Charm at the Farm at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons. Goodrich rented a commercial kitchen and made 300 cookies. They sold out early and when she returned in 2019, she brought 700 cookies, which sold out in one hour. She got the message that she might have something here worth pursuing.

The importance of a team

She has also had to learn to delegate and let go of some of her perfectionist tendencies.

“It’s hard to run and grow the business, so having a good team of people I can count on is important,” she says. “I’ve also had to let go of the idea that every single cookie is going to look exactly the same.”

Still, to keep them consistent, each classic cookie weighs 4.5 grams, and every specialty cookie weighs 6 grams.

“All we care about is making delicious cookies,” she says. “I’ll never think they’re good enough but when people tell me they are the best cookies they’ve ever had, that makes me happy!”

Science behind cookie making

ens make the same recipe identically. The humidity in a kitchen and environmental changes outside can affect the outcome. This dictates tweaks in ingredient ratios, such as using more or less flour or baking soda. She now has a meter on the wall to track fluctuations.

“The scientific part of me really enjoys experiments; that’s how I got started,” she says. “But it can also be frustrating, especially when we’re really busy.”

Red’s Scratch Made

548 N. Main Street, Mooresville 980.444.2665 www.redscookies.com

Your New

Favorite Cookies!

Along with in-demand chocolate chip, Red’s offers some flavors you won’t find anywhere else. Goodrich has weekly specials and her menu changes seasonally, but you’ll always find versions of snickerdoodle and chocolate peanut butter. She makes her own hot fudge and caramel for specialty mix-ins.

Her personal favorite is the salted brown butter chocolate chunk, and she says everyone should try her fluffernutter cookie.

For Valentine’s Day, she’ll feature a special strawberry cookie with hot fudge piped into the center. You can sweeten someone’s heart holiday with this one!

A Pet For You

info@piedmontanimalrescue.com 704.360.4262 228 E. Waterlynn Road, Mooresville www.piedmontanimalrescue.com

These animals are looking for their forever homes . . .

Peanut

Peanut is a male domestic shorthair kitten. Peanut is a 12-week-old kitten that is looking for his forever home. He came to the rescue with his four other siblings. He is very playful and active and loves his toys. Peanut will let you hold him like a baby. He had a rough start being born out in the cold, bit has rebounded nicely since he was taken in and given human affection and love. The adoption fee is $150 which includes age-appropriate vaccinations (FVRCP), Dewormer, spay/ neuter, microchip, combo test as well as the registration of their microchip information to you.

Zeus

Zeus is a 4-year-old 25-pound chihuahua terrier mix. He has finally gotten past all the issues from his past life and is ready to start another. He is a very loving boy who loves to sit on a lap and be rubbed, yet loves and needs a fenced yard for him to get all his energy out and run. His favorite thing is chasing and chewing on tennis balls. Zeus would be best as an only dog or maybe with one other. We are not sure how he is around cats or children. This boy is perfect for an active couple or single who can keep up with his energy! The adoption fee is $250 which includes age-appropriate vaccinations (DA2PP and Bordetella), Dewormer, spay/neuter, microchip, heartworm test as well as the registration of their microchip information to you.

R E H C P A

Providing tax, bookkeeping and payroll services to the Lake Norman area since 2006

Raymond Halstead Andrew McMillan

704 - 662 - 8249 | www.rehcpas.com 223 Williamson Road, Ste. 104 | Mooresville, NC 28117

When you think about retirement planning, how do you define success for yourself?

There are a lot of ways to answer this question, but after 16 years of working with retirees and those approaching retirement, we can confidently say that the most predictive measure of success for the happiest, most satisfied retirees, has very little to do with numbers on a balance sheet, or percentage points on an investment statement. It’s actually far simpler.

The real measure of success in retirement is ensuring the opportunity to sustain the lifestyle you experienced while you were working, throughout your retirement, without running out of money in the process. And to accomplish this requires carefully building around the cornerstone of any successful retirement plan - your income.

To help you get started we’re going to cover 3 critical steps you can take to help build a more secure retirement income plan, without introducing unnecessary risk in your retirement plan.

(1) Optimize your Social Security Benefits: Social Security is most people’s #1 asset in retirement, but much of the available information we see about it is contradictory, confusing, or even downright incorrect. To ensure you’re making the most of your Social Security benefits, start by making sure you’re equipped with the right questions to ask. • Do I know when I should file to maximize the income my spouse and I receive from Social Security? • Do I know my “break-even” point between filing early (to claim for a longer timeframe) and filing later (to claim a larger check)? • Have I reviewed how the 2019 SECURE

Act changes could affect me? • Do I understand how my benefits, my spouse’s benefits, and potentially my ex-spouse’s benefits can be combined to produce the highest amount available?

(2) Leverage your pension benefits: While fewer and fewer Americans have access to pension plans today, many still do. Understanding how to coordinate these benefits with the rest of your income plan can potentially take significant stress off of your ability to provide the income you desire in retirement. A few questions to consider: • How does my pension affect my or my spouse’s Social Security? • Do my pension options protect my spouse if I die prematurely? • Do they adjust to future inflation? • Are there methods to help me potentially increase my pension payout? • Have I reviewed my potential health care benefits to coordinate with Medicare? • Have I researched the organization providing my pension to understand it’s financial health?

(3) Use advanced planning strategies to create an

income stream to cover any income gaps: For most retirees, this step is the single most important in the planning process. Ensuring your plan creates steady, predictable income for as long as you live is critically important, and coordinating your income plan with your investment and tax plan can have a huge impact on the success of your retirement. Consider the following: • Am I protected from sequence-of-return risk if the market experiences volatility? • How changes to interest rates may impact my income in the future? • Have I reviewed my portfolio to understand how, and how much income will be generated from my investments? • Do any of my investments offer a guarantee lifetime stream of income? • Do I have a plan to replace income if I outlive my spouse, or vice versa? • Are there other planning strategies that might exist to create more income that I should consider?

Retirement planning can be confusing, but meaningful progress starts with a clear process. If you’re unsure about how these, or any other questions might affect your retirement, we welcome you to take advantage of a complimentary discovery session to help you get the answers you need.

Derek Bostian, CFP® | Jason Rindskopf, WMCP® Two Waters Wealth Management | 704.275.2500

Fitness at Your Fingertips It usually starts in January, the reevaluations of our physical health, eating habits, and if you’re me, the dreaded annual physical. Thanks to advancements of technology, we now have smart watches and smart phones all designed to make sure we are drinking enough water, taking enough steps and eating the right types of food. With so many people What are some fun workout/ doing more home-based or virtual workouts now, I thought it would be helpful to take a look at some of the most popular fitness apps. food tracking apps to try? Personally, I have a pretty simple approach to using these apps. I wear an Apple watch with the built-in fitness tracker, setting goals for how by Renee Roberson many minutes I want to exercise per day and how many calories I want to burn. I pair the watch with an app owned by Under Armour called MyFitnessPal, where I track the number of calories I eat each day based on if I’m losing or maintaining weight. MyFitnessPal can tell from Apple how much exercise I’ve completed in one day and adds calories back to my daily goal accordingly. I use the free version, but you can upgrade your subscription to open up more benefits. I did an informal poll on social media to find out what some of my friends like to use, and I got responses from a lot of people who use apps for both calorie counting and fitness and strength training. Unless noted, these apps are all free with the option of in-app purchases. Lose It! Is a popular one for calorie counting, meal planning, recipes and helping you recognize what patterns could be hindering your progress. One friend mentioned using the 5 x 5 app, which helps people create a strength training program using compound movements such as deadlifts and bench press. Another person likes Walk at Home, which offers a collection of workouts designed to fit your fitness goal, from cardio, strength, HIIT or stretch. A friend who is a cyclist mentioned TrainingPeaks, and this app can be used for those who want to train for a triathlon, cycling or running. Strava can help with those same goals, too. Someone else mentioned Openfit as an alternative to a gym membership, so I checked that one out. It allows you to stream live classes with certified personal trainers, and you can choose from more than 250 running, barre, HIIT, yoga, weightlifting, Pilates, and more. It can also help you with a personalized nutrition program. Monthly subscriptions start at $14.99 per month. The bottom line is, there are ways to make getting in shape more fun. And if you’re not the type of person who wants to be connected to your gadgets 24/7, there are programs you can stream on your television for in-home workouts during the chilly winter months. I’ve been known to stream the POPSUGAR Fitness Channel on YouTube, because there’s never a shortage of workouts to pick from there!