Morgan Hill man is living the American Dream
WATCH OUR VIDEO OF BABA JOON BY CLICKING HERE
Published in the February 4-17, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Robert Airoldi
Photo by Oliver Kaelin
Ali Agah, also known at Baba Joon, in his kitchen where he makes his Baba Joon’s Chocolate Chewies.
Ali Agah, known as “Baba Joon” (Dear Father in Farsi) to just about everyone in Morgan Hill, is the epitome of the American Dream. Raised in Tehran, Iran, he arrived in America more than 40 years ago as a single father of two boys. He embraced the American lifestyle with the ardor of a young man, working as a cab driver in Washington, D.C., and owning his own cab, before operating a print and copy shop.
But it was his discovery that American pastries were not as good as those made in Europe that eventually propelled him to create his delectable Baba Joon’s Chocolate Chewies. However he was not able to do anything about it until 1980 when he moved from Eugene, Ore., to San Jose where he and his wife opened their first French bakery in San Jose, Our Daily Bread and Cafe.
Then, in 1994 a customer in San Jose asked if he could make something without flour.
“I talked to one of my bakers and when we started it was nothing like we have today,” he said. “It was dry within 24 hours.”
Baba Joon was constantly creating something new and exciting — he was never satisfied with the status quo. Before the days of, “low fat! no cholesterol! low carb!” he saw an opportunity to create something delicious that would appeal to young and old alike. The original Chocolate Chewie was born and became an instant success.
“I trained myself and little by little perfected the recipe,” he said.
He baked them five days a week, selling out nearly every day. No one cared that they were low-fat, gluten-free, and dairy-free – that was a bonus to the fact that they were seriously delicious, and he couldn’t keep up with the demand.
Even after Our Daily Bread closed its doors, Baba Joon never forgot about those cookies.
In 2006, he made the decision to share Chocolate Chewies with the world. It’s still a family business, of course. His oldest daughter Myra Kaelin works side by side with him, and one of his sons retails Chocolate Chewies at a pizzeria – Pizzanista! – in Los Angeles.
“As of December 2006, this came to be my primary business and here now we’ve opened our manufacturing kitchen in Morgan Hill and we hope to get cookies all over stores,” he said. “We’re almost there.”
The company moved into its new facility off Joleen Way last year, and his Chocolate Chewies are now made in 20 different flavors and he’s working on getting his cookies in grocery stores, markets and in the kitchens of Silicon Valley high-tech companies.
“We were looking for a large place for expansion and hope to have 10 to 12 people with automation do what we now do by hand,” he said.
People call his creation “little chocolate miracles.” Baba Joon said there’s nothing like them on the market
“There are other companies who bake these cookies but nothing near ours,” he said. “Ours are crunchy outside, soft inside and basically they’re a very healthy cookie with no flour, no soy, no dairy, and for that reason they are very low on calories; as low as 30 per cookie.”
