David Crabill

Yes you can. Here’s what the ag dept says about it:

As long as your product meets the requirements of the Cottage Food guidance document and is a non-potentially hazardous food, sampling is allowed. Samples must be pre-packaged in your home kitchen (e.g, if you sample bread, you can’t cut it at the market, but can cut it in your home kitchen and individually wrap or package the bread samples into sample cups with lids). Although you do not need an individual label for each sample , you must have properly labeled packages of your product on display with the samples so your customer can review the ingredient list. Your product cannot be cooked or prepared in a way that makes it a potentially hazardous food/temperature control for safety food (e.g., you can’t add a dried dip mix to sour cream or serve anything that can’t be kept safely at room temperature – these examples would require a food license).

It’s not a gray area… drinks simply aren’t allowed.

Not that I know of, but you shouldn’t have your cat in the kitchen while you are working. Also, if your cat does climb on the counters, you definitely should sanitize all surfaces before using them. This is especially a concern for allergy reasons.

That’s all correct. You could still try contacting your health dept to see how complicated it would be to serve coffee… you might not need much more than a sellers permit. Montana has actually specifically allowed hot coffee and tea in addition to their cottage food items.

The cottage food laws are only for items that are intended for consumption. I’m not sure what the rules are for selling lotions, but I believe it’s possible to do from home. I’d recommend calling your health dept to learn more.