Donna Phelps and her gourmet cookies

Hairstyling's loss is every cookie lover's gain. Growing up in Price Hill, Donna Phelps always baked cookies. And everyone always loved them. So with encouragement from friends and family - and just about anyone who took a bite - she finally put down her shears and hairdryer in March 2001 to become a full-time baking entrepreneur. That's when Phelps started Donna's Gourmet Cookies, and began selling at Findlay Market on Saturdays.

Word spread, and Phelps shifted her business to accommodate companies and other organizations who bought the cookies in pretty, bow-tied tins to give as gifts. Last December, Phelps sold more than 6,000 cookies, and she is on pace to beat that record this year.

But hers is still a small business, which may help explain the quality of Phelps' cookies. She bakes weekly, with the help of two friends, in kitchen space leased from Hyde Park United Methodist Church. Much of the year, she's at Findlay Market and a few festivals, smiling and selling her sweet wares.

Phelps offers more than a dozen cookie varieties, including oatmeal raisin, white chocolate macadamia nut, peanut butter filled with ganache, and another decadence called "mounds" - a chocolate wafer topped with coconut cream and bittersweet chocolate. Her best-seller, though, is her plain chocolate chip.

Her cookies are better because she uses "good stuff," Phelps says. Real butter and whole eggs. Donna's cookies are also distinguished by their girth and weight, which seem to approach a quarter of a pound each. Evidently, when it comes to cookies, Phelps doesn't believe in "thin and crispy."

Another gain for cookie lovers.

Donna's Gourmet Cookies: $14.50-$24.50 per 1- and 2-pound tins. $14-$26 for mixed trays. 474-3056 or e-mail drp471@aol.com.

Chuck Martin