When going gets tough, bake cookies

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

Wally Amos, wearing his signature watermelon hat, whips up a batch of cookies at his home in Lanikai. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

Signing a fresh batch of books Wally Amos will sign copies of his fifth book, "The Cookie Never Crumbles," at Hawai'i bookstores this weekend. Today: 12:30-1:30 p.m., Bestsellers, Downtown; 5-7 p.m., Waldenbooks, Ala Moana Saturday: 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Waldenbooks, Pearlridge; 2-3 p.m., Borders, Ward Centre Sunday: 11:30-1:30 p.m., Waldenbooks, Windward Mall; 2-3 p.m., Borders, Waikele

Correction: Cookies ARE Wally Amos' life and, he added unflinchingly, a symbol of life itself.

It's the theme threaded through "The Cookie Never Crumbles" (St. Martin's Press, $19.95) the fifth book by the founder of Famous Amos cookies, a series of inspirational anecdotes from his topsy-turvy years of changing fortunes.

There are recipes for enduring hard knocks, and every vignette ends with a "cook's note," like this one: "When you fold your basic ingredients together, expect lumps ... but whether a lump is flour or sugar, it's still part of the batter of life!"

"This book is here to provide antidotes, solutions," Amos said. "It's all things people know. This book will be a reminder."

The book, subtitled "Inspirational Recipes for Everyday Living," was co-authored by Hawai'i writer, actor and director Eden Lee Murray. Reading their words, however, can't possibly be more inspirational than spending an hour with Amos, a 65-year-old man child who can make sentimental observations without sounding too cloyingly sweet.

"I think it's amazing that this book comes out at a time when people are incredibly fearful," Amos said, as he scooped nugget-sized cookies from the batch he'd just baked. "The cookie is a metaphor for life, and life never crumbles. The body can crumble. The World Trade Center was brick and mortar, and it was crushed to the ground.

"The people in it died, but their spirits will live on," he said. "I believe that life is eternal and God is at the center of that, for me. And if God is the source of everything in life, you can't kill God. You can't kill love. All of these things never change."

Amos should know something about survival. His Famous Amos cookie empire rose from the ashes of a stymied career in theatrical management, including years in the William Morris Agency. Then, when the business foundered in cash-flow problems, he was forced to sell it, ultimately losing the right to use the name "Famous Amos" and even his own name in connection with food products.

Attempts to market his own cookies under the "Uncle Noname" banner, didn't last, and the "father of the gourmet chocolate-chip cookie" no longer sells his own creations. Even his cheery Lanikai home, decorated with a menagerie of teddy bears and a parade of knick-knacks in his favored watermelon motif, was foreclosed. Only through the kindness of friends was he able to scrape together enough to buy it back.

His settlement with Kellogg Co., which took over Keebler Co. last year and thus inherited the

Famous Amos line, means that he will continue to serve as promotional spokesman for the cookies until next February.

And then, the never-say-die promoter will be out with a revamped version of his "Chip & Cookie" line of plush toys, keiki books and apparel, first launched nine years ago. This rendering will feature the two cartoon cookie characters as well as the cuddly cookie-baker "Aunt Della," replacing the "Grandma Dovely" of the original book.

There really was an Aunt Della, as it turns out. Della Bryant was the aunt with whom Amos lived when his parents divorced. She was the one who taught him to make cookies in that diminutive scale.

"That's the only way I knew how to make cookies," he said, rolling out a tube of dough and lining up the tiny bits he'd pinched off. "Big cookies? Huh! Those are pies."

The tins were ready to slide into the oven.

"Go on in," Amos cooed. "Bake nicely!" Then he grabbed the kazoo hanging around his neck and tooted a fanfare. "The kazoo is their favorite," he added.

Amos, father of four and grandfather of four, adores the airy home and office backed up against a bit of Lanikai wilderness that he shares with his wife, Christine, and their daughter Sarah (now a freshman at the University of Southern California). But his travel schedule allows him to enjoy it only about a fourth of the year.

"The reason I drive myself so hard," he said with a wry smile, "is I need to get in the position so I can stay here more."

And if, for now, Amos has less time to spend with family than he'd like, at least his book, and the storybook to come next spring, pays tribute to a family member who's left an indelible mark.

"Aunt Della's in cookie heaven," he said, retrieving the tins of sweet morsels from the oven. "But she's here today. Her spirit is here."