Eats
LES woman makes huge entry into cookie biz
BY GABE HERMAN
A Lower East Side resident is
starting a cookie company from
scratch and trying to stand
out from the competition with some
uniquely fl avored cookies that are truly
homemade.
Kerianne Cotray, 29, lives on Water
Street and uses her apartment as her
cookie headquarters, doing all the baking,
wrapping and shipping from there.
She named her company baKD – using
the initials of her maiden name Kerianne
DeSantis – and just shipped out
her fi rst orders on Sept. 8.
The cookies are not only homemade
— Cotray bakes four at a time on trays
in her kitchen — but they’re also big,
weighing around 6 ounces each. Cotray
said that turned out to be the maximum
size before they started falling apart.
Flavors include The Lunch Box, with
a peanut butter cookie base mixed with
peanut butter chips and a strawberry
jam fi lling; The Sandlot, with a Graham
cookie base with chocolate chips and
vanilla fl uff fi lling, topped with marshmallows
and chocolate; a classic chocolate
chip cookie called The Chunk that
includes walnuts; and It Takes Two,
with a dark chocolate cookie base with
sea salt and chocolate chips.
Courtesy baKD
Kerianne Cotray, the founder of baKD, at the Hester Street Fair.
The hefty cookies go for $5 each.
Cotray’s business is so grassroots
that she doesn’t even have a website,
instead posting information and taking
orders through an Instagram account,
@bakd.bakery.
“I really like it even though it’s a lot
of manual labor,” Cotray said of her
budding business. “I like the chemistry
of it, the experimentation of it. I just
like it.”
Cotray also recently got into bodybuilding,
and entered a competition
that ended in early May of this year.
Afterward, she went on vacation and
learned that she’d been laid off from
her job in the tech industry.
She then decided to do something
that she really wanted, and that turned
out to be cookie-making. It happened
to coincide with her craving for cookies
after not being able to indulge while
training for the competition.
Her husband Jason designed the
company’s logo, and helps with packaging.
Cotray takes orders through Instagram
and then bakes and ships the
cookies within a few days. On her fi rst
day of taking orders, she got about 115
cookie requests, which is 60 percent of
capacity right now.
She had a stand at the Hester Street
Fair on Sept. 14, which Cotray said was
a big success. Cotray will be back at the
Hester Street Fair, at 25 Essex St., on
Sept. 28 and Oct. 26.
Cotray said she feels good about taking
the risk of starting a business. “At
the end of the day,” she said, “if it fails
I still took a chance and did it, and I
think that’s pretty cool.”
Read more at thevillager.com.
Vegan eats
at big fest
on Randall’s
Great times brew at Queens beer fest BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
BY THE VILLAGER STAFF
Make plans to cross the river
next month, as the Queens
Beer Festival returns to Long
Island City on the weekend of Oct.
5-6.
LIC Flea & Food, located at 5-25
46th Avenue in Long Island City at the
corner of 46th Avenue and 5th Street,
will once again host the Beer festival
dedicated to local craft beer.
This highly anticipated annual event
was launched in 2016 as the fi rst and
only festival in Queens highlighting the
exploding craft brewery scene in New
York City and particularly Queens
County. Over 2,000 attendees come
out annually to meet, taste and discover
the local breweries and seasonal craft
beers offered. The event also includes
activities and live music.
The festival runs from noon to 6
p.m., and there are two sessions to
choose from each day.
The Queens Beer Festival will include
approximately 50 beers from
about 25 local craft breweries. Tickets
include unlimited beer tastings and a
souvenir mug.
Breweries scheduled to be pouring
unlimited tastings include Queens
Brewery, Big aLICe, LICBeer Project,
Mikkeller Brewing NYC, Singlecut
Brewery, Coney Island Brewery, Blue
Point Brewery, Brooklyn Brewery,
Gun Hill Brewing Company, Montauk
Brewing Company and more!
Festival attendees can also enjoy international
cuisine from entrepreneurial
chefs and shopping of handcrafted
and vintage items offered by LIC Flea
& Food vendors.
Tickets start at $39 offering unlimited
tastings and are available online at
queensbeerfest.com.
Visit LICFlea.com for remaining
dates. The LIC Flea and Food site is a
short distance from the 7, N, Q, E, M
and G trains, as well as the LIC East
River Ferry stop and a parking garage
on 5th Street. The market is easily accessible
to people living throughout
New York City.
Over 150 vegan food and
drink vendors from across
the country will take part in
Vegandale on Sept. 28 in Randall’s
Island Park.
A part from showcasing the best
of vegan food and drink, the festival
will also attempt to educate the
public on veganism’s social justice
roots.
“People often think that veganism
is a diet for white people eating
only salads,” said Hellenic Vincent
De Paul, president of Vegandale, a
collection of Toronto-based vegan
food and drink brands organizing
the festival. “We’re out to prove
that Veganism is rooted in justice
for animals and that you can still enjoy
all of your favorite comfort foods
without exploiting animals.”
Some of the dishes on the menu
include: Fish and Chips from Oh My
Cod, Cinnamon rolls from Cinnaholic
and Southern Fried Chicknuns
from V-Eats.
The festival will take place from
11 a.m. to 7 p.m. To purchase tickets,
visit vegandalefest.com
Schneps Media TVG September 26, 2019 23
/queensbeerfest.com
/thevillager.com
link
/LICFlea.com
/vegandalefest.com