Genevieve Ko Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine.
Today's guest is Genevieve Ko, senior editor and columnist of New York Times Cooking and the Food section. If you are a big cookie nerd like me, then one of your favorite times of the year is the New York Times Cookie Week reveal. Each year, the Times unveils a series of show-stopping cookies made by their cooking team all-stars, and this year's lineup is very special. Lots of our faves like Claire Saffitz, Samantha Seneviratne, and Melissa Clark. Think Bûche de Noël cookies, turmeric lemon crinkles, and cheesecake-stuffed ginger cookies, just to name a few. Lucky Genevieve gets to coordinate the entire package, and she's joining me in just a minute to talk about this year's bakes. No doubt you're going to want to make some of these cookies, and I am guessing a few of you already have. Stay tuned for my chat with Genevieve Ko.
Today's episode is presented by Kerrygold. Have you noticed that butter is having a moment? I've seen handbags sculpted out of butter, little couches made from butter pats, tiny butter cherubs, even butter-colored nail polish and fashion. The world is butter obsessed, but you know who loves butter more than most? The folks at Kerrygold. They've been perfecting their craft for decades using milk from Irish grass-fed cows to create their famously rich, creamy golden butter. There's a reason Kerrygold is beloved by everyone from home cooks to the world's top culinary creatives. It's just better butter. Kerrygold salted pure Irish butter has a butterfat content of 80%. Well, the unsalted version has a butterfat content of 82%, and that beautiful yellow color, it's thanks to beta-carotene, found naturally in milk from grass-fed cows. Want to get in on the fun? Get yourself some Kerrygold and whip up some flavored compound butter. Fill some fancy butter molds or sculpt one of those gorgeous butter mounds for your next dinner party, or get-together. Visit kerrygoldusa.com to learn more, get recipes and find a stockist near you.
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Now, let's check in with today's guest. Genevieve Ko, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Genevieve Ko:
Thank you so much for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
Because it's your first time here, I would love to know more about you. You've such a fascinating job, and just to put so much cool stuff out into the world for all us food lovers. Let's start with where you grew up.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah, sure. I grew up in Monterey Park, California, which is right next to East L.A.
Kerry Diamond:
And now you are back in L.A.
Genevieve Ko:
And now I'm back in L.A just as of a few months ago. Yeah, I'm back in L.A.
Kerry Diamond:
New York's loss is L.A.'s gain.
Genevieve Ko:
Let's hope.
Kerry Diamond:
What was it like growing up out there?
Genevieve Ko:
It was such a beautiful community where I was. It was interesting because I grew up in an Asian enclave in Los Angeles, but right next to East Los Angeles, so I really grew up in a community that was primarily kids and families who are from Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mexico. So it was a really interesting upbringing in that way. And the food, oh my goodness. The food was phenomenal. It was phenomenal because everyone was only cooking for their own communities. I had no sense that that was special or different. It was all I knew. So going on play dates after school, maybe it was rice and beans, or maybe it was onigiri, like little rice balls. It was so many wonderful things. People would bring tripe for lunch, and it was totally the norm. If somebody brought a bologna sandwich, it was like, "What is that? What do you have there?" So from a food perspective, it was glorious.
Kerry Diamond:
Did anyone cook in your house?
Genevieve Ko:
So neither of my parents actually really cooked much. I had a babysitter who was really into cooking. We would watch all the shows together. So we would watch Julia and Jacques and Martin Yan. She didn't speak English, so we would also watch the Chinese channel cooking shows, and that was really fun. And I would cook with her, make dumplings. I was thinking about this recently. I had this memory of like, "She was always cooking and she would do things like cure her own pork belly." We'd have it hanging outside, and it was really fun. Yeah, it was really fun. I don't know that I was that helpful. She didn't really let me help that much. Once it got to the actual cooking, stir frying is especially so hot and so fast, but definitely folding wontons and prepping vegetables. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
What food did you love as a kid?
Genevieve Ko:
Oh, I loved everything. It's one of those things now as an adult working in food, people say, "When did you know?" And I think as a kid, you have that moment either with friends or even my siblings, I guess, where you realize, "Maybe not everyone feels as strongly as I do about every single thing that I get to eat." So I loved everything. I loved everything, but the first thing I made on my own was cookies. It was baking. So I had an aunt who lived in Vancouver, and she would come and visit, and she was a baker. She was the only one in my family.
Baking is not really a thing in Hong Kong where they all grew up because people don't have ovens in their homes. There were bakeries in Hong Kong, but she really was such an excellent baker. So every time she came to visit, my grandma lived with us, and so she came to see her mom. She would bake with me. And at a certain point, I just thought, "Well, I can try this. Yeah. I can try this on my own.” With the “Better Homes and Gardens,” that red checked cookbook. So I started with peanut butter cookies. That was my first ever foray into doing one entirely on my own.
Kerry Diamond:
That was your gateway?
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. And then I've never stopped with the cookies. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I love a peanut butter cookie. So I can see how you got on that. How about your career path? What career path were you on when you were younger? What'd you think you were going to do?
Genevieve Ko:
I wasn't a stereotypical agent in a way that I never thought I was going to be a doctor or a lawyer. I guess I was stereotypical in that I assumed I would be going to business in some, I don't know what that means. When I was a kid, I didn't really know. I didn't have any idea. I think I had some fleeting thoughts when I was in very distinctly both second grade and fifth grade, thanks to some wonderful teachers that I would be a writer. We worked on these writing projects and I love them. We made our own little books and that I really loved, but within my worldview, it wasn't a thing you could do. So I would say I loved reading as much as I loved cooking for sure. It was just always in books and always writing and always enjoying that. In retrospect, I can see now I had this glimpse of what I really loved and I feel so lucky, truly every day to get to do both of those things in my life and in my career.
Kerry Diamond:
Did your parents put any expectations on you career wise?
Genevieve Ko:
Well, yes and no. I think I had a unique upbringing that way. I think my mom just wanted me to have some stability. She just wanted me to have a job that paid. My dad was an architect and very much an artist in spirit, and so he was a big proponent of doing what you love, getting out there, put yourself out there, take risks, don't take no for an answer. So there were two different messages, one being like try to do crazy things and the other being like, please don't do any crazy things. Please just get a job. So when I graduated from college-
Kerry Diamond:
Mixed messages from the folks.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. When I graduated from college, and I had the option between a creative path that I wanted to pursue and a very stable job in education, which was also really interesting to me. I started in education, but it was also partly because the structure at that time, I couldn't afford it. I couldn't afford to do the creative internship. So having the salary with the benefits, it was good, but I also can now see again, it was such an amazing job. I loved it. I learned so much from it. It was actually what got me started on my path in food. So it was really a lot of fun.
Kerry Diamond:
We’ll be right back with today's guest. This episode is presented by Meridian Printing, the family owned printing company based in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Meridian has printed Cherry Bombe Magazine for the past several years, and it's always a pleasure working with the team at Meridian. They are meticulous and professional and care more than any other printer we've ever worked with. They are amazing partners. When I wanted to print three covers of our Icons issue, they said, “No problem.” When I wanted to put a Molly Baz poster in every copy of our Molly issue, they said, “We got it.” And they were amazing about helping us get the pink shade just right for our new Ina Garten issue. If you have an idea for a magazine or a zine or maybe you want to do books on demand, you should talk to the team at Meridian Printing. Visit meridianprinting.com for more information.
Cherry Bombe's next Jubilee conference is taking place in New York City on April 12th. Early bird tickets are on sale right now at cherrybombe.com. If you're an official Bombesquad member, be sure to check your inbox for special member pricing. Jubilee is a conference we started in 2014 as a way to bring women together for networking, conversation and community. It's a beautiful day filled with friends, new and old, great talks and panels, and amazing things to eat and drink. This year's Jubilee will be our biggest and our best one yet. Visit cherrybombe.com for early bird tickets. Prices will go up January 1st. The link is in our show notes.
How did education lead to your food career?
Genevieve Ko:
I was working in college admissions, and I was working in college admissions at Yale. It was a combination of the job requiring a lot of travel, so it gave me a lot of opportunities to try food across the country, around the world that I wouldn't have otherwise. I guess that's not true. I guess there are lots of jobs where you travel, but through this job, I had that opportunity to do that, and simultaneously, it's incredibly busy, but it also was 9:00 to 5:00. It's a university job, and so I was able to go and work in restaurant kitchens at night and really start training that way. At that time, Mark Bittman, the food manager, was living near New Haven, and so I met him through a book signing in New Haven, and it was right when his career was really starting to take off. I mean, it already had had. “How to Cook Everything” had already come out, and he had just signed, I think, his contract to be a columnist with the Times.
So he was just at this juncture of needing help, of needing a research assistant. I got to do that, and that was the greatest possible training in food writing. Had I not been in Connecticut, had I come to New York City... I mean, I'm sure there's so many opportunities you can never know, but for me, that path was so helpful. It was so great. I learned so much from him, but also everything we did was so rooted. So deeply rooted in home cooking and being in essentially a suburban Connecticut... Well, New Haven's a city, but going to suburban supermarkets I think really was a good foundation to start from there. Even though I was training in a restaurant kitchen simultaneously, the work that I was doing in food writing was also very home cook centric.
Kerry Diamond:
Had you quit your job at Yale?
Genevieve Ko:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
So you're doing all of this?
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. I look back at that sort of energy.
Kerry Diamond:
I know. It was like when I had my internship site, all the part-time jobs to I had to afford the internship. And I was like, "Who was that person?"
Genevieve Ko:
Who was that person? Yeah. I would book it out of the office to make it to the restaurant by the time service started to be on the line. When service started, and then every Saturday and Sunday, those were the big days to be on the line, cooking all day, and then researching for Mark at starting at whatever, it was 11:00 P.M.
Kerry Diamond:
You said you learned a lot from Mark. What were some of the things you learned from him?
Genevieve Ko:
The very fundamentals. The very fundamentals of how to write a recipe. What is a head note? What function does it serve? How should you list ingredients? How should you write instructions? Real fundamentals. I want to say it's rocket science because everyone in the world, back in the day, it was like recipe cards. Now, it's blogs or TikTok captions. Anyone can write a recipe, but to do so in a way that isn't just compelling, but truly walking someone through a recipe like hand holding in that way. So all the way from the real nuts and bolts of that to just so much about food, it was really an education. We were working on the book, “The Best Recipes in the World.” That was the first one. And then afterwards, we did a bunch of others, but that was the very first one.
He was such a great teacher. He would just hand me this huge stack of the, here are the foundational books for these different cuisines. And we would just go through them and research and research like, where's this dish from? What are the fundamentals in it? How can we do this dish in a way that works for home cooks and is true to its roots? And then also at that time, he was still collaborating on chef's cookbooks and would bring me along. And that was, oh my gosh, how special was it to walk into Jean-Georges kitchen and to be cooking alongside him as a 22-year-old? It was amazing.
And Mark's busyness was my gain, and he was very generous in that. And you know what? I don't have time to do this. Can you take this over? And I was like, 100%. That too was a huge part of it. Learning how to collaborate with chefs, learning how to convert chef's recipes into written forms that are workable for home cooks while again, staying true to who they are. And then the art of ghostwriting at that time too, learning how to write in someone else's voice.
Kerry Diamond:
Because you went on to work on some books with big chefs.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Which ones are you allowed to talk about? I used to do some ghostwriting. You signed a fair number of contracts that say you can't talk about it.
Genevieve Ko:
I think obviously all the ones on which the chefs generously shared the byline with me for sure. I can talk about those. They were all really great. Jean-Georges was incredibly generous for who he... Again, I was just this fresh out of school kid and was really generous and kind. And from there, my first solo collaboration was with Pichet Ong, great pastry chef. I still love that book. I still cook from it all the time.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us the title.
Genevieve Ko:
“The Sweet Spot.” Yeah. So those Asian-inspired desserts, “The Sweet Spot.” And then since then, a lot of books. And I think the collaborations that we've had with Cherry Bombe would be with Carla Hall for sure. Amazing. We've done three books together. Katie Button, just so wonderful too. Working with her in Nashville. And then of course in between all that got into the magazine world here, and that was really too, that big education. A lot of years in there, working in test kitchens and working just across all the different departments in a magazine.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, you're clearly a bit of a chef whisperer. What's the secret to that?
Genevieve Ko:
Gosh, it's really listening. It's not the whispering. It's the listening. It's trying to hear what story they're trying to tell, understand what dish they're trying to really execute, being mindful of their fundamental needs as a restaurant owner or a chef in a restaurant, and then trying to find the threads and trying to see where the story is. I think I was very lucky in a lot of the collaborations I pursued. Well, chicken and the egg, like I pursued collaborations or agreed to collaborations where I really felt like there was a story to tell. When you see or know that there's a story to tell, well then it really naturally unfolds. So I'm trying to think of an example.
With George Mendes, at that time, Portuguese cuisine wasn't quite on the radar yet, but boy at Aldea his restaurant that he had in the Flatiron District, boy was it delicious. So I was like, "There's very clearly a story to tell here, not just of this restaurant, but of a whole cuisine and the way it's come here." And we did both go back to Portugal, but also to his community in Connecticut, his large Portuguese American community. Yeah. There are times when the story... If there isn't a story there, it's pretty tough, but when you just see it and hear it right away. Yeah, I think that's where... A lot of listening, a lot of asking questions, I hope gets you to a great book.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Let's talk cookies.
Genevieve Ko:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you grow up making cookies? Did you love cookies as a kid?
Genevieve Ko:
Cookies were the very first thing I made. I think there's a narrative that so many people have with cookie making. Next to my mom, next to my grandma, special old cards, and it's such a beautiful thing that I did not have.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, thank goodness you had your aunt, but-
Genevieve Ko:
I did. She wasn't a cookie baker, interestingly. She wasn't a cookie baker. She made the most glorious sponge cake, which is actually in my baking book just because that sponge cake means the world to me. But she wasn't really a cookie baker, sponge cake, muffins, a few other things.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you a millennial?
Genevieve Ko:
I think I'm technically Gen X, or what is it called, X-nial? I'm in that right.
Kerry Diamond:
Got it. Because we didn't grow up with great cookies, like packaged cookies.
Genevieve Ko:
No. Chips Ahoy is the only one I can remember. I guess Oreos.
Kerry Diamond:
But we didn't even really have double stuff for, I don't know. Pepperidge Farm felt like the fanciest thing in the world.
Genevieve Ko:
And we did grow up with the blue dance tins.
Kerry Diamond:
The Danish cookies?
Genevieve Ko:
Danish cookies. The blue tins of the Danish cookies. That was very special. I know a lot of people have a lot of nostalgia for different cookies, but even as a kid, I loved the circus animals that were coated and the icing with the sprinkles because they're so cute. But even as a kid, I would bite into one. I was like, "This is not good. I don't want to eat this." This is-
Kerry Diamond:
But Kepler had some good cookies. But yeah, I liked a Girl Scout Cookie.
Genevieve Ko:
I loved a Thin Mint. Thin Mint was always my favorite. It still is.
Kerry Diamond:
Were you a Girl Scout?
Genevieve Ko:
I think I was for one season for the explicit purpose of being able to both sell and then have an excuse to buy a lot of boxes of cookies. But cookies were so attainable as a child. I think I was like eight or nine when I made those peanut butter cookies. It felt like, "I can do this." My parents didn't buy me an Easy-Bake Oven. I don't even remember if I asked, because I think they were just like, "Why not just use the oven?" I don't think they cared, and it was a rough start. I was truly doing it on my own. I mixed up the salt and the sugar.
Kerry Diamond:
No.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. So I took that first bite and it was really sad, but maybe this will speak to my temperament. It was sad for a second. I was like, "Let's do it again. No way. This is not it. This is not it." And then-
Kerry Diamond:
But that taught you how to taste at an early age.
Genevieve Ko:
Well, I mean, you could taste was salt. It was a cup of salt.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm amazed so many people don't taste as they go when they cook. I mean, you obviously do because you've been trained by some of the best chefs in the world, but tasting, I remember Alice Waters talking about that all the time. You have to taste. You have to taste.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. I think most home cooks really don't. It's a very hard habit to get into if you haven't at some point really establish that. I think a lot of the best intuitive, natural home cooks who don't follow a recipe at all, it's partly some natural intuition, and I think also they're just tasting a lot as I go.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I wind up tasting so much when I cook. I've used every single spoon that I own. That's very funny. Well, let's talk about Cookie Week.
Genevieve Ko:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I look forward to Cookie Week every year. I think it's such a fun time of year. It's also a busy time of year, so I don't really have time to make all the cookies, but I wish the Times would open a little bakery.
Genevieve Ko:
And just sell a little box. I mean, I promise you-
Kerry Diamond:
Next year.
Genevieve Ko:
... our marketing people are probably hearing this and like, "Okay."
Kerry Diamond:
But anyway, we're here to talk about this year. I'm so curious. Genevieve and I are talking before they have unveiled all the cookies. The unveiling is always a big deal. So what are the highlights this year?
Genevieve Ko:
We're always leaning into, "Hey, where's that moment of joy that we can really give people? Where is that spark of something that just feels new and exciting?" And of course, they're always foundationally grounded in some familiarity because our cookies. But yeah, we work really hard with our creative and brilliant recipe developers to say, "Hey, wildest dreams. What kind of cookie do you want to make? What will make you and those you love so happy?" We really think about Cookie Week as much and exercise in the spirit of sharing as it is just straight up cookies. We're not just thinking about the qualities, but really like, "Hey, what's going to make someone so happy if they were to receive this?"
Or for people who are really hardcore bakers, I think this is a lot of the joy we're looking to spread is people who are so into baking who get so excited to try something new and exciting in the kitchen, and that's also a way of doing it. And then other people who don't bake at all, who maybe don't even care that much about eating cookies, but just want to see it. They just want to look at it and be like, "This is so fun." And watch the videos and be so into the videos and to see the digital, those images.
Kerry Diamond:
And they're always gorgeous. I mean, for somebody who's like a print nerd like me, I just love seeing the print execution.
Genevieve Ko:
Good, good, good, good. Because yeah, we work super hard on all of it to bring it all together, to bring people that kind of joy. Then also, we are looking at the technicalities of like, "Okay. Is there something nutty? Is there something chocolatey? Is there something crunchy, chewy, soft?" Just to hit all those marks for every taste.
Kerry Diamond:
How competitive is it? How do you decide who gets to contribute a cookie recipe?
Genevieve Ko:
That's so interesting. I have never ever thought of it in a competitive sense. I think neither Cookie Week-
Kerry Diamond:
Melissa Clark doesn't wake up January 1st and she's like, "I'm having a cookie this year."
Genevieve Ko:
Gosh, no. I mean, well, here's the spirit of it. I was going to say what I call our NYT cooking family is really how I think of it. Of course, we have a team of staff, but we have such a big group of freelancers, both developers, testers, food stylists, photographers, and I really think of us as a family and among the developers. Gosh, that is a good question because yeah, I've for sure worked at different magazines and test kitchens. I guess it is conscious, but it hasn't really had to be of wanting to create a spirit of collaboration and sharing.
So that same spirit of like, "Okay. Which cookies will make people want to spread joy?" I think we even feel that same way in the planning process. It's truly not competitive. It's really gracious. We try really hard to mix it up each year a bit so that we can, yes, that we can spread the love and joy among even our developers for different people to have opportunities to share what they've got because we are limited by a week, but it's not really a limit. I don't want to call it a limit, and I think-
Kerry Diamond:
Well, you have to have some limits, you can't have everybody. Because it'll be the cookie recipe-
Genevieve Ko:
Of course. You have some limit. But I guess I should have said at some point, so my job is sort overseeing the recipes and cooking content of what we do at NYT Cooking. So we have these Cookie Week cookies, but also throughout the rest of the month of December, we have some of our other really brilliant, wonderful bakers doing other cookies through other stories, having them live on site. So they're not the only cookies that we're publishing in December. They are attached to the videos, but even as we're figuring out which cookies to do, the sense of graciousness among the team is amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I think we're happy to hear it's not a cutthroat cookie competition.
Genevieve Ko:
Gosh, no. So Melissa Clark does not wake up in January saying, "Which one is mine this year?" Melissa Clark comes in at the end and say, "Hey guys, I will do whatever you need." Because as we all know, Melissa Clark can do anything anyone needs anytime. She is a superhero cookie maker.
Kerry Diamond:
We love Melissa Clark. Good karma cookies across the board.
Genevieve Ko:
100%. Yeah. Every year, and with every project, I'll say Melissa brings the spirit of like, "You tell me what you want. I'll give to you." And of course, she comes with brilliant ideas. She's like, "Hey, I was thinking this or that or this."
Kerry Diamond:
Does she have a cookie this year?
Genevieve Ko:
Of course. Let's start with her.
Gosh, she did bring so many great ideas to us, and we landed on a spin on one of her most beloved cookies on her site, which are her perfect black and white cookies. Everyone loves those black and white cookies. We're doing red and white peppermint cookies. Of course, though it's not actually a black and white cookie. The cookie itself is a shortbread, so super buttery, delicious.
Kerry Diamond:
Not that cakey, black and white.
Genevieve Ko:
Not a cakey cookie, but the icing is a similar icing, but instead of the black and white, the red side is peppermint.
Kerry Diamond:
I haven't seen the photos yet, but the food styling is always chef's kiss.
Genevieve Ko:
Okay. Well, just wait until you see these. Just wait till you see these red and white cookies because yeah, they're fantastic.
Kerry Diamond:
What cookie should we talk about next?
Genevieve Ko:
I think one of the ones I'm really excited about is in fact, not a cookie. It is a cookie, but it's so Sohla is doing Holiday Rocky Road. I just always love to learn something new. When she pitched this, I was like, "Ice cream?" And the answer is no. Actually, we all in America know Rocky Road as ice cream, but it's actually an Australian treat that's really fudgy. It's like a fudge just studded with all these fun things. You can do whatever you want, and they're gumdrops marshmallows. It's one of those things where I'm always pleasantly delighted by a treat where I'm like, "This is not my thing." I look at it, I'm like, "This is not my thing. It's going to be too sweet or too candy forward." But then I take a bite and I'm like, "Oh my God, this is amazing. I love it." It's so fun, and it's one of those for sure. I think kids, anyone can do it. It's really, really fun.
Kerry Diamond:
Marshmallows?
Genevieve Ko:
Anything, Marshmallows, gumdrops, references her cookie from last year. Her Rainbow Rave, those ones that were just coated with all the, yeah, Sohla definitely brings the fun, which is... I mean, everyone does does. She brings the color, which is so magical this time of year.
Kerry Diamond:
So Sohla's is a non-cookie cookie. I saw on the list Claire Saffitz's Bûche de Noël Cookies, and I was like, "Okay. I need to learn about these."
Genevieve Ko:
Okay. Well, I'm pretty sure you're going to swoon when you see the photos because I definitely do. So, so amazing. She's taking the spirit of a Bûche de Noël, but turning them into these bite-sized cookies, and she's doing chocolate on chocolate, so it's more like if you imagine a Rugelach. So it's like a Rugelach with this beautiful chocolate pastry dough wrapped around more beautiful dark chocolate, and it is just absolutely stunning and gorgeous, and it really does capture both the spirit of a Bûche de Noël and also of a Rugelach where you have, but it's like pastry. It's so perfect. Tiny Bûche de Noël They're gorgeous. They look like teeny tiny Bûche de Noël. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Claire loves a project.
Genevieve Ko:
It is a project.
Kerry Diamond:
Is this one for the project baker?
Genevieve Ko:
100%. I've looked at the recipe so many times and I've tried to calculate, I'm going to find a day on my calendar where I'm just going to actually block out the action. I 100% want to do it. I think the thing I love so much about Claire's recipes, because we have found this again and again. She gives us projects sometimes. They're not always projects, but we assign her projects because she is able to both write the recipes and then explain them in video in such a way that if you have never, ever baked before in your life, you can do it.
It might not look like the photo, but you can 100% do it, and you're going to have something really, really delicious to eat at the end. I mean, that's our guarantee for every single recipe, but it really, it's a special skill to be able to do that with such a, I don't want to call it so complex, but sort of. It's pastry. It's rolling. It's cutting. But yeah, it's one of those, if you watch the video with Claire and you follow her directions, you follow the recipe, you can absolutely make them. I'm super excited for those.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, there's a reason all of them are superstars. Those three women.
Genevieve Ko:
For sure.
Kerry Diamond:
The package is always styled so beautifully. Who did it this year?
Genevieve Ko:
Well, one of our actual Cookie Week bakers was also such a talented stylist, so Samantha Seneviratne.
Kerry Diamond:
We love Sam.
Genevieve Ko:
We all love Sam.
Kerry Diamond:
She was on our cover.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. So she's fantastic. Her style is to do these baked goods where you really, like brown is beautiful. I love that about her baked goods. They always have this rustic coziness to them, they're so, so delicious. And she did a ginger bread cookie, but she actually stuffed them with a cream cheese filling on the inside. So I love that you look at these cookies and you're like, "Ginger bread cookie." But then you take a bite and it's filled cream cheese frosting in any form, I'm a total sucker for, but inside a cookie, I love it. She also recently did, first, it's up on the site now, a gingerbread cake with a mascarpone frosting as well. Love that flavor combo this whole season, and to do it in these cookies. I love that she did it in this way where she stuffed them so that when you bake it again, it's all cooking on the outside because you can absolutely then pack them in a box.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't think I've made a stuffed cookie. Can you walk us through a little bit of how do you do that?
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. The very first step is actually to make the stuffing part, because what you do is that you then have these dollops of that stuffing. You freeze it. You just want to get it super frozen. Yeah. So you have that in the freezer while you make the dough, which the dough is really a lovely, lovely, straightforward drop cookie dough. And then once you've rolled that dough into a ball, you make a little indentation and you put your little frozen stuffing in there and seal up the ball and roll it back up. It's not even tricky. The only part about it's planning ahead so you have enough time to freeze the filling, but that doesn't even take that long because you're just little balls of cream cheese frosting.
Kerry Diamond:
I love a gingerbread cookie too.
Genevieve Ko:
So good.
Kerry Diamond:
Is it a little chewy?
Genevieve Ko:
Of course. Yeah, absolutely. But then it's coated in sugar, so it has that crackle too. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Sam, if you've got any of those kicking around, you know who to call.
Genevieve Ko:
You'll take interest.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm so excited. Which one is next?
Genevieve Ko:
Another one I'm super excited about is Vaughn's Rum-Buttered Almond Cookies. The season is the season for rummy flavors. I'm a huge nut person. I will always, always want nuts and my cookies, and so Vaughn makes these beautiful almond flour based cookies, and then they're also coated in slivered almonds, and they're rum just running throughout rum and butter running throughout them. They're so delicious. These cookies are just naturally gluten-free because they're made with almond flour, so tasty, and I love, love being able to give people... People who can't have flour, I want them to have same thing. I want them to have that same cookie joy. I imagine it is super sad to not be able to have every cookie, so to be able to give them these cookies that are, regardless of whether or not there's flour, they're so, so tasty.
Kerry Diamond:
That's good to hear that you have an offering like that. Tell us one more.
Genevieve Ko:
And then Eric went the crinkle route this year, and so we played around with so many different crinkle ideas, which we were we going to go and we decided to go lemon turmeric. Eric is so great at bringing in these surprising flavors. I still remember the day he pitched me Gochujang Caramel Cookies. I was like, "What?" I was like, "Yeah. Go for it. Let's try it. Let's see it." And this year with the turmeric, you really want to lean hard into turmeric, which is such a delicious flavor, but it's hard. It's bitter, but he balanced it so beautifully with lemon. It's so lovely. They look like a little rays of sunshine because they're crinkles, so they have that powdered sugar coating that's all cracked up, but then beneath it, you get this glow. You get this yellow glow.
And I would say last, but certainly not least as Sue Li. Sue Li is somebody who styles for us a lot and then also develops recipes for us, and boy, does she bring it with her cookies. This year she's doing a shortbread that's matcha and black sesame. She has a great method for how you get the stripes in the shortbread. I just love these sorts of flavors where in a season of sugar bombs, I don't know how else to phrase that. You have this tannic aspect of matcha and that real nuttiness, so it's a real savory. Nuttiness of black sesame in this shortbread, so delicious. And I love that they're very sleek because they're that dark green and charcoal. They're very sleek looking, but also just so delicious, so tasty.
Kerry Diamond:
They all sound so good.
Genevieve Ko:
They're so good. And all together-
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, I have to find time to make them all.
Genevieve Ko:
I know. I know we're spoiled because you can pop by the shoot and have them all at the same time, but I know I need to figure out. I want to set aside time on my calendar to make all of them. I'm really, really excited.
Kerry Diamond:
I would love to be a fly on the wall for the conversations about the vetting and the deciding which ones that everybody's pitching are going to make the final cut.
Genevieve Ko:
Boy, I'll be honest. It takes weeks. Even then, sometimes we go back and we'll tweak and we'll tweak and we'll tweak. And it's really funny because when Cookie Week started as a brainchild of Scott, who's the head of all of our video and Vaughn who works on our culinary videos in deep pandemic, they just wanted to bring people some joy at home, and they had people just, "What cookie do you want to do? Film it in your kitchen." It was so organic. I think we still try to maintain that sense of this organic, like, "Hey, what's true to you?" But then of course, as you know, once you have a big print and digital package involved, you really want to be thinking about colors and shapes. And then for me, from the culinary side, I always, always am thinking about home bakers. I want that aspirational project, and I really want ones where like an eight-year-old. An eight-year-old can make and be like, "Cool. Look at what I did though." Sometimes we have maybe not 8, but 10-year-olds who show us their creations, I'm like-
Kerry Diamond:
That has to be so much fun for you, because I mean, I know after the cookie package drops, seeing all the folks on Instagram who make the whole thing and does constellation inspiration. Is she one of the ones who does it beautifully?
Genevieve Ko:
Okay. We are food professionals-
Kerry Diamond:
Amy Ho, right?
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. A lot of us have worked in pastry kitchens and bakeries, and we're all like, "How did she do that?" She does it so fast, from the moment of the drop to when she posed.
Kerry Diamond:
I always thought you guys knew her and maybe gave her the recipes early.
Genevieve Ko:
No, not at all. I don't know how she does it. No.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, everything she does. I mean, her gingerbread houses, she's such a talent.
Genevieve Ko:
She's such a talent. I think our marketing team is partnering with her this year because she's just been such a friend to Cookie Week, and we're so touched. We're just so like, "Yeah, we're really touched by it."
Kerry Diamond:
But it is fun to see what everybody makes, and everybody's looks different. They're cookies.
Genevieve Ko:
100%, every year.
Kerry Diamond:
Human touch comes through.
Genevieve Ko:
100%. That's what I love about-
Kerry Diamond:
Do you wind up having dreams about cookies? Are you so deeply immersed in this?
Genevieve Ko:
100%. I have had so many dreams where I am cookie monster and I'm like, but often I do. I have actual standing over the mixer dreams. What am I actually going to put in there? Yeah, what am I going to put in next? I definitely have dough rolling dreams. They're not anxiety dreams. I have those too. Those are different. They tend not to be around the baking. Those tend to be around spreadsheets, but no. The baking ones are always good ones. They're these wonderful ones. So this year, the cookie I did is an old fashioned shortbread. By old fashioned, I mean, it's my drink of choice. I love an old fashion, so trying to take the bourbon, the cherry, the orange twist, and get those flavors into shortbread. The shortbread is that really short, buttery shortbread. It's a shortbread that feels old fashioned, but it's also studded with bourbon soaked dry cherries and orange peel, and then I do a bourbon wash. Again, speaking joy, we also just love to collaborate with all of our colleagues at the time. So we're doing a big 31 days of joy across lots and lots of departments.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I was going to mention, it's so convenient now you have your wire cutter friends, because I read wire cutter. I just saw best sheet pans, best butter, our friends at Kerrygold.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. So we're collaborating with them too on a few different cookie stories.
Kerry Diamond:
Getting rid of my black plastic utensils, that's a big thing right now.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. So it's been super fun to do that. But in terms of dreaming about cookies, I find that my best ideas for dishes, savory or sweet, but especially sweet ones, is just at the end of the day lying in bed and thinking about what do I want with it better? What do I want with it? Yeah. What shape do I want? Do I want it rolled, chilled, cut? So I think falling asleep that way inevitably results in stand mixer dreams.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you still write cookbooks?
Genevieve Ko:
I haven't in a long time just for lack of time. I really miss it. My poor agent. Hi, Leslie. Sorry. She keeps pinging me.
Kerry Diamond:
And you left us. You left New York. You are L.A. girl now.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. So I just moved to L.A.
Kerry Diamond:
Big baking scene in L.A. now.
Genevieve Ko:
Oh my goodness. So many delicious bakeries. So many great bakers out there. Yeah. It's super fun. And I do come back pretty frequently to be with my colleagues at the Time, so it's really wonderful getting a taste of both cities and seeing what different bakers are doing in those places. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun to experience those different tastes. It's a different vibe. It's all delicious.
Kerry Diamond:
What are your thoughts on a little bit of an underbake for a cookie?
Genevieve Ko:
Interesting. Because I'm not a rock.
Kerry Diamond:
You're not?
Genevieve Ko:
I'm not.
Kerry Diamond:
Because I was going to send you to a place called Fleurs et Sel, which is a beautiful little bakery, but she does these really interesting cookies, but there's a little bit... They almost look like a little UFO, but there's a mound and a little bit of an underbake.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. So I think one of the things with my particular role that I'm super mindful of, maybe this is partly having come up in a more old school media world, I'm really mindful of there are things that maybe I don't like, but I know that a lot of other people like him, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Kerry Diamond:
You're such a diplomat, Genevieve.
Genevieve Ko:
No, but that's real, because I remember, I don't know, you probably remember being in old school meetings. Well, I hate that, so we're not publishing it. I'm like, "What?" I won't lie. There are things that I think are full on wrong, so I'm like, "Well, this is objectively not how a cookie should ever, ever be," but the-
Kerry Diamond:
No one gets into media for lack of opinions.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. 100% I believe that, but I totally understand the raw cookie dough thing. I know it is huge. I am not a fan.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my God. I love cookie dough.
Genevieve Ko:
I do love the edge of a raw cookie dough cookie. I just don't eat the middle. So if I buy a Levain cookie, for example, I will eat that very outer edge and then give the rest of it.
Kerry Diamond:
We would be good roommates.
Genevieve Ko:
Exactly. So these UFO cookies you're talking about, I'm like, "That edge sounds delicious."
Kerry Diamond:
Anyway, it's a beautiful little bakery, but there's so many now. You've got so many bakers out there.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. For sure. It's really, and I love too going to pop-up, like pop-up bakers to see what up and coming people are doing. It's really fun. And I love seeing what home bakers are doing.
Kerry Diamond:
What's the best cookie you had this year?
Genevieve Ko:
Oh my gosh. The best cookie I had this year. I have been thinking about this cookie I recently had in L.A. that's really an oldie but goodie. There's this really long, long time place called Julienne in San Marino, California, which I was first introduced to when I was in high school. I think they've been around since the nineties, and they have this cookie called the Jumble Cookie, which they've had forever and ever. I made the recipe from a clipping that I took in the New York Times, and it's called the Jumble Cookie because it has almonds and walnuts and pecans and chocolate chips and dried fruit and all this stuff.
And this particular time, this last time I got it, they changed something and it was so fantastic. It was always a good cookie. That's when I like to be surprised by like, I don't like to discount. The places are not hot and new, like, "Everyone's talking about it. Everyone's going to this place or that place," and a lot of times those places are fantastic, but sometimes you go to an old school place, and I'll be honest, I was just there because I was filling up my gas tank on the corner and I was like, "I need a cookie right now. I'm just going to grab a cookie." It was not an intentional scouting. I was just like, "They did something different. It's fantastic." It was really good.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, don't sleep on the classic places.
Genevieve Ko:
Don't sleep on the classic places.
Kerry Diamond:
I was thinking about that the other day because now with TikTok and everything, it's almost impossible to get near a new place these days.
Genevieve Ko:
That's true too.
Kerry Diamond:
But we're lucky in a place like New York City. We've got so many good, solid existing businesses and classics. What would maybe be my cookie of the year? Briana Holt, who's the baker up at Tandem. Roasters in Portland Maine. She does a white chocolate or maybe like a caramelized white chocolate cookie. Oh my gosh.
Genevieve Ko:
That sounds so good.
Kerry Diamond:
Chewy.
Genevieve Ko:
That sounds so good.
Kerry Diamond:
Really just an epic cookie.
Genevieve Ko:
That sounds really good.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, Briana, always thinking about that cookie. She's also a great baker. Everything she makes is good.
Genevieve Ko:
I know. We did her recipe, Eric Kim went and got her recipe for her sugar biscuits.
Kerry Diamond:
She's really well known for her biscuits. Yeah.
Genevieve Ko:
I was like, "I'm going to make the time to be the recipe tester on this one." We have a wonderful, wonderful, huge crew of freelance recipe testers, but I was like, "You know what? I think I better test this one just because I wanted to eat them".
Kerry Diamond:
Before we let you go, let's do a little speed round.
Genevieve Ko:
Fun.
Kerry Diamond:
What beverage do you start your morning with?
Genevieve Ko:
Coffee, black.
Kerry Diamond:
What's always in your fridge?
Genevieve Ko:
What is always in my fridge. Some fruit. Always some fruit. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Well, good thing you're back in L.A.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah, 100%.
Kerry Diamond:
Best farmer's markets.
Genevieve Ko:
That's right. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
So lucky. What was your favorite food as a child?
Genevieve Ko:
Gosh, I would have to say dumplings. Always dumplings of some sort. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Still?
Genevieve Ko:
Still, all types.
Kerry Diamond:
The face you were making, I was like, "She till loves her dumplings."
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah. Can you tell?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Genevieve Ko:
Every single type of dumpling. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
What is your snack food of choice?
Genevieve Ko:
That's ever-changing. My most recent one on pure impulse Bugles. I can't explain it.
Kerry Diamond:
Bugle, I haven't had one of those in a long time.
Genevieve Ko:
I know. I hadn't had one in a super long time, and for some reason I just walked into the store and I was like, "Bugles."
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. What are you streaming right now?
Genevieve Ko:
I just started and I'm excited to finish “Interior Chinatown.”
Kerry Diamond:
I saw a trailer for that. It looks so good.
Genevieve Ko:
I love the book, and I'm so fascinated to see how they... Because the book's so amazing, and I'm so interested to see how they're turning it into a show.
Kerry Diamond:
And it takes place around a restaurant.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite food film?
Genevieve Ko:
Tough one. There are so many. I mean, probably “Eat Drink Man Woman.”
Kerry Diamond:
Dream travel destination.
Genevieve Ko:
Maybe because we were just talking about it earlier, Portugal. Portugal is amazing. I think it's now apparently overrun with tourists. So can I go back in time? But still love the country.
Kerry Diamond:
What is your most used kitchen implement?
Genevieve Ko:
Knife, for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Full-size chef's knife?
Genevieve Ko:
I think though, this doesn't count, it's one of those cheater answers. I really cook with my hands a lot. Just mixing. Yeah, so hands, But then if you're talking about actual tool, then knife. I'm an eight inch chef's knife. Yeah. Longer than that is too long for my... I'm short. It's too long for me. And then six inch. I do have a six inch that I just use for little tasks, but yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Final question, and I have no idea what your answer is going to be. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Genevieve Ko:
100% Carla Hall. Yeah. We really got to know each other so well through working on these cookbooks together. Really consider each other friends, and we know each other's families. We watched each other's kids grow up, and that would really be why. We're already friends. We get along great. We found that our rhythms. We worked together so well, and we've stayed each other's places a bunch.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so nice. She's fantastic. She's been on the show twice, and I'm just always struck by what a great storyteller she is. How funny she is, but then what a deep, thoughtful person she is. Sometimes you only know the public lively Carla.
Genevieve Ko:
Sure. No, she is such an insightful thinker and phenomenal cook. I think a lot of people don't get a chance to eat her food from her hands. Boy, she's so talented, but also she is, as I always say, it's not just that she's as nice as she seems on camera, she's actually nicer. She's actually an even kinder person than you get on screen, which is already a super nice person. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, good answer.
Genevieve Ko:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, Genevieve, so nice to meet you.
Genevieve Ko:
It was so great to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
So to chat with you and learn a little bit more about the cookie package.
Genevieve Ko:
Always happy to talk about cookies and always happy to just chat with you too.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a rating and a review. Anyone you want to hear on an upcoming episode, let me know. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is a studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening, everybody. You're the Bombe.