Amber Anderson

Make no mistake: Amber Anderson makes the best damn chocolate-chip cookies we’ve ever had. They’re perfect in form: big chips, a chewy center and a buttery crunch on the edges. And the flavor… well, we can’t quite put our finger on it. “It’s three sugars and one spice,” she says enigmatically. Anderson, originally from Danville, Va., was once an office administrator for the US Corrugated factory before the company was sold and she lost her job. She decided to go back to school for her master’s degree and then go on to medical school, but she needed an income in the meantime. “I was like, I been making cookies from scratch since middle school,” she says. “I’m just gonna try selling my cookies and see how it goes.” The result was the Sugar & Spice Cookie Co., a mail-order bakery that sells seven types of cookies, fudge and brownies by phone at 336.638.6400 or electronically at www. sugarspicegso.vpweb.com. Of the brownies, she’ll only say this: “There’s a secret to those too.”