Cookies Are Healing

by Laurie Woolever

Social media is a time-sucking misery machine, true, but it is also how I became aware of Paola Velez, who leads with a sly sweetness, a funny knowingness about the imperfect world around her, which you can hear in this interview on WNYC radio. She has absolutely mastered the extremely-short-form food comedy video, saying so much with just a raised eyebrow or a frown. She can also go long, to captivating effect; her video explainer about chef David Chang’s chili crunch trademark controversy earlier this year is hilarious and smart, a comic master class in the complexities of food industry trademark law.

Velez, who grew up in the Bronx, is an award-winning pastry chef who in 2020 created Bakers Against Racism, a worldwide collective that has raised over two million dollars for social justice causes. In October she published her debut cookbook, Bodega Bakes. a collection of treats inspired by the corner stores of her childhood, filled with new twists on whoopie pies, macaroons, tres leches cake, and other nostalgic favorites. The essence of a bodega, or deli, or a corner store, according to Velez, is its meaning as a third space, “Where the community meets, right? When you’re hungry, when you’re sad, when you’re happy—when you’re running to work, when you’re coming home from work—for all New Yorkers, from all walks of life.”

So far I have made at least a half-dozen batches of Velez’s Guava & Cheese Cookies. They’re a brilliant adaptation of the classic pastry, pastelito de guayaba, with cubes of tangy guava paste and mild white Dominican frying cheese nestled in a crisp-chewy brown sugar and butter cookie base. The recipe is written in a clear, approachable style, and it works. These cookies are appropriate for any season, region or occasion, and the dough freezes beautifully. I’ve been portioning it and pulling out one cookie per day, which I bake in my toaster oven, on a small square of parchment, for 20 minutes at 325F.