Matthew Chin
Reporter
matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt
While flour, eggs, sugar, and butter are the four basic ingredients used to make cookies, Jo Ann Lee-Subero’s contribution to the success of her sweet treat is owed to the details of their designs. Ensuring what you see is just as important as what you eat.
Lee-Subero has been selling cookies since 2016, each bearing a unique design upon the request of her clientele that, she said, can take from an hour up to an entire day to perfect.
“I remember that I’ve always loved details. Sometimes finishing cookies up until three in the morning. I used to love those ceramic plates that people used to have, but I love looking at all the little details of it ... a tail of a cat under a chair—those are the details I like to include in my (designs),” Lee-Subero said.
However, the 59 year old’s love affair with cookies is not by coincidence, she hails from a family of artists who’ve enjoyed helping her flourish and inspired her through the years to give the world only the best.
“My dad and mom would do flowers for Kiss, for the cakes. My dad would go out, take a flower, pull it apart, and develop his own patterns. This is why Kiss said, ‘Let your parents do the flowers for ten cents each. My husband draws; he does a lot of caricatures,” Lee-Subero said.
Her father passed away in 2007, and it “still feels like yesterday.”
“I have two sisters and a brother, and they would say, ‘Your father would be proud.’ He loved when we created things,” Lee-Subero said, reflecting on her childhood.
Lee-Subero made her first batch of cookies in 2016, the same year that she was inspired to learn more about all things icing, piping, and embossing. But before leaping into being a full-time entrepreneur, the mother of two first worked as an administrator at Bermudez and would end her time there in the Human Resources department. Her sister, Debbie, who was and still is a baker, needed to make cookies at the time. This was when both Lee-Subero and her eldest son, Elijah, rolled up their sleeves to pitch in. This was when the idea of The Salty Scone took form.
“It was around Easter when my eldest son said he would try to help. He did the baking and is very artistic, but he didn’t know how to do the icing. My sister came across to show him how, and I helped him; we all enjoyed it. I took some cookies to work, and the girls there loved them. Then people asked me, ‘Why don’t you sell?’
“It is really something that takes time and practice; the icing, the decorations, it’s 20 per cent art and 80 per cent practice,” Lee-Subero said. “Even though someone orders 60 cookies, each person is going to get one cookie (with a particular design), and if there’s a flaw on that cookie, they’re going to see it.”
She devotes her time and energy to baking the dough and ensuring the details of her designs are flawless.
About the label on her cookies, The Salty Scone, Lee-Subero said the name stemmed from a mistake she made one day while cooking.
“One day I was trying to make scones for the kids and I put salt instead of sugar. But my boys, and husband, all ate it. They said it tasted really good. So that’s where the name came from,” Lee-Subero said.
The type of cookies she sells are butter cookies with a coconut flavour.
“Elijah developed my cookie flavour; I don’t vary my flavours. I don’t do Funfetti and chocolate chip because sometimes you get butter bleed. I can’t speak for the commercial cookies, but a lot of the cottage industry cookies, we would use butter and fresh eggs,” Lee-Subero said.
The cookie community of T&T
What might also surprise some is that Lee-Subero is not the only cookie enthusiast in Trinidad, there’s a community, she said, that is passionate about the craft, thriving to help others, including novices, to succeed at their ventures.
“We have a very good cookie community in Trinidad that I go to for assistance or tips. And, for me, it’s not a competition, I think there’s so much work out there, there’s enough for everyone to get. I get so many orders sometimes that I am unable to supply.
So, I would happily send a client to another cookie maker,” Lee-Subero said.
“I think we are all stressed,” she laughed. “We question ourselves, ‘Is this going to be good enough?’ We want to offer perfection.”
A consistent challenge is doing characters, especially their eyes.
“We have problems with doing eyes. Characters are the bane of my life,” Lee-Subero joked. “Right now, I’m working on birthday cookies and the cutest Mexican salamander. I must tell you, it’s a challenge, it gives me a headache. Many people aren’t able to do character cookies.”
Crime too close to home
The entrepreneur is supported by a strong family network—The Salty Scone Crew, she said—who aid in making her business a reality every day and go even as far as delivering cookies to her clients.
While thoughtful of her surroundings as T&T has entered an unfortunate new way of life, it does not preclude Lee-Subero from working on her masterpieces and getting them to her customers across the country.
“We have to go out there and deliver cookies, fortunately, many of them are repeat customers,” Lee-Subero said.
Taking a look at the country’s fall into the spiral of crime, Lee-Subero confessed that she does not go out as much as before. She went on to describe a terrifying incident that happened a year ago.
“A car pulled up, guys with guns, who stole my son’s sister-in-law’s car. His mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and her husband had returned home from a funeral. It’s not safe here, it’s now ... it’s terrifying. These are things you used to read about. I am not seeing anything being resolved,” Lee-Subero said.
The increase in the nation’s criminal element has also rattled her sons to the point that they prefer liming at home with their friends than being part of the nightlife.
“My sons’ friends are always over for movie nights or just hanging out. No more late-night Avenue or pub limes,” Lee-Subero said.
International attention
Her hard work has reaped for her business not only returning customers but the attention of high-profile figures from the United States.
Two years ago, a Food Network producer reached out to Lee-Subero to be part of the Food Network Christmas Cookie Challenge.
“(The producer) did not know I was living in Trinidad, so she had to turn me down,” Lee-Subero lamented.
Despite the disappointment, the producer called her work “amazing”.
She said John Cohen, the producer of The Garfield Movie, which came out this year, also contacted her on her Instagram page (@thesaltyscone), praising her work.
“I got a clap from John Cohen, I was thrilled, my little claim to fame,” Lee-Subero said, cheerfully.
As Lee-Subero’s cookies continue to make wide impressions both at home and outside our borders, she is seeking to expand her business by teaching others how to make their own cookies.
“I love teaching. I like interacting with everyone,” Lee-Subero said.
“If you have no sort of artistic ability, you can do it, but you still need a vision. If you’re doing something, do it good. Whatever it is, be the best. And it is the same thing with my cookies, I must do it the best that I can. You have to say in the end, ‘Wow, I love this. I can’t part from you.’”
Lee-Subero lives in Maracas Valley, St Joseph, with her husband, Pedro Subero, and the rest of her family whom she cherishes. She has two sons, 29-year-old, Elijah, and 25-year-old, Noah. She also has a two-year-old granddaughter, Ellie-Ara Luna Subero.