Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.
Harry Martinez has delivered The New York Times for 44 years. Once a week, he makes the long haul to West Virginia to pick up copies of The Times Magazine, which are then inserted into the Sunday paper. The round trip takes around 10 hours.
Mr. Martinez’s shift was a little different on a recent Sunday morning. He was back in the city, for one, his usual delivery truck parked near a grassy stretch of Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
And instead of ferrying his typical cargo, Mr. Martinez was delivering something sweeter.
His vehicle was freshly wrapped in larger-than-life cookie photos and adorned with a bumper sticker asking, “How’s my baking?” The truck had been transformed to herald the arrival of Cooking’s annual Cookie Week, a weeklong celebration of seven festive new cookie recipes. The truck made three stops around the city, bringing holiday cheer and, more important, about a thousand cookies.
Mr. Martinez’s favorite part of the cookie delivery? “That I get one for free.”
At the first stop, in Greenpoint, people started lining up shortly after 8 a.m. to taste some of the Cooking staff’s newest holiday recipes: Vaughn Vreeland’s candy-packed popcorn-bucket concoctions, swathed in butter; Melissa Clark’s pillowy Vietnamese coffee swirl brownies; an Eric Kim treat inspired by mint chip ice cream, with a tender shortbread base; and Claire Saffitz’s mortadella cookies, which resemble a cold cut despite their strawberry-almond flavor. (“It’s not actually meat,” one event worker reassured those eyeing the selection.)
Other goodies were in store: a special Cookie Week section from that day’s newspaper, bumper stickers, and scratch-off games with Cooking merch as prizes. The first few people in line also received a copy of “Cookies,” Mr. Vreeland’s new cookbook.
“Seeing how many people actually show up for it is really exciting,” Mr. Vreeland said in an interview at the Greenpoint stop, where he donned a red apron to greet the crowd and pass out books. “You put all this work into Cookie Week — it is a monthslong journey — and to actually see it come to full fruition with the events and the print section of the paper is very neat.”
In line were plenty of avid bakers — or just avid cookie eaters. A few had heard about the event through social media or local news outlets; some were walking their dogs nearby when the truck rolled in. Joe Spiegel, who lives nearby in Williamsburg, came early to Greenpoint with a single goal. “I was dragged out of bed with the promise of free cookies,” he said.
Others came in hopes of nailing down a recipe for their family cookie swaps. There were also a few Times Cooking superfans, like Debbie Lowe. She met the truck at its next stop, in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn, and said she had baked every one of Mr. Kim’s cookie recipes. And at least one person brought Mr. Vreeland homemade cookies.
This was the truck’s second year roaming the city. The Times delivery trucks are such a recognizable and vital part of the paper’s history, said Mackenzie Brewster, a marketing director at The Times, that they made the perfect conduit for gathering Cooking fans in person.
“I share a lot of New York Times Cooking recipes with a lot of friends, but you don’t get to share it in person a lot,” said Gavin Reidy, who drove down with his family from Riverdale in the Bronx to meet the truck at its third stop, in Long Island City, Queens. “There’s a lot of digital sharing and picture sharing, which is connection in its own way — but this is different.”
The Times’s marketing team worked with an outside production agency to bake the cookies in bulk and hand them out on site. “I literally feel like Santa Claus,” one event worker, Kiana Lyman, said as she filled a red milk crate with cookies while Christmas music blared.
Ms. Clark joined Mr. Vreeland to help hand out her brownies in Dumbo. Just before noon, as the team gave away the last of its cookies in the neighborhood, a final hopeful trickled in. She was out of luck: All of the treats were gone.
“I’m so sorry,” Ms. Clark told her. “But you know what? You can bake them.”
Nancy Coleman is a Times editor who writes about theater.
The post A Special Delivery From The New York Times: 1,000 Cookies appeared first on New York Times.
