If the most recent election cycle has already led you to eat your feelings, now you can put your nervous nibbling to good use. A pair of local food doyennes, Sarah Minnick (Lovely's Fifty-Fifty) and Kristen Murray (Maurice), have converted Donald Trump's inauguration into an opportunity to devour crazy high-quality cookies and funnel funds to Planned Parenthood simultaneously. 

  

Next Wednesday and Thursday, January 18–19, 21 female-owned businesses across the city will unleash "Cookie Grab 2017: The Ultimate Bake Sale," hawking "kick-ass boxes of beautiful homemade cookies" created by a cadre of Portland's most respected bakers. Cookie contributors range from Minnick and Murray to Kim Boyce at Bakeshop and the lady crews at Sweedeedee, Dame, and Beast (full list of contributors, below). The goal? Raise $25,000 in support of women, children, and reproductive rights. In a total not-coincidence, every cent raised will be donated to Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette on Friday, January 20... the same day America officially makes noted grabber Donald Trump's presidency a real-deal thing. 

 

The pink boxes, 500 total priced at $50 each, really are a sugary marvel—packed with 21 cookies from the most beloved sweets mavens around town. Think salty dark chocolate crackles from Baker & Spice, gluten-free peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies from the talented women over at Milk Glass Mrkt, upsettingly good smoked almond chocolate chippers (a.k.a. our "Cookie of the Year 2015") from Coquine's Katy Millard, and passion fruit creams from Elizabeth Beekley, who closed her popular Two Tarts and Palace Cakes last year. Murray will ante up double chocolate korovas. "Yeah, there's not a dud in the box," attests Minnick.

 

The all-volunteer operation, which was hatched less than two weeks ago during a home dinner Minnick and Murray shared, is also a concrete reminder of the wide, wide breadth of talented women Portland's restaurant industry boasts. And what they can create on short notice when they're really, really pissed off motivated.

 

"I think, as do all of the women contributing to this cause, how critical it is to put forward a compassionate protest and raised voice rather than a nihilistic approach to the political climate unfolding," explains co-organizer Murray. "This will be the first of many fundraising collaborations to be hatched in the years to come."

 

Boxes are pre-order only, and 200 have already been claimed. (EDIT: boxes are now sold out.) Secure your sweetness now and pick up the goods next week at your choice of sugar shack. FYI, the businesses will also have cool, high-quality Cookie Grab posters for sale for those who want to donate but, I assume, also want to actively deny themselves pleasure. 

 

Finally, something sweet is happening in 2017.

• Ayers Creek Farm          
• Baker & Spice
• Bakeshop                        
• Beast
• Coquine                            
• Cyril's
• Dame                                  
• Little Red's Bakeshop      
• Lovely's Fifty-Fifty          
• Mae
• MÅURICE                        
• Milk Glass Market
• Nostrana                            
• P's + Q's
• Sea Star Bakery                
• Sweedeedee
• Tournant                          
• Two Tarts
• Woodlawn Pastry            
• Miss Zumstein

 

Portland Cookie Grab 2017
$50 a box, order Cookie Grab boxes here 
Pickup at participating local bakeries and restaurants
Wednesday–Thursday, Jan 18–19