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.