🍪 Lessons from "The Smart Cookie"

A Recipe for Resilience from 11 Friends

Apr 17, 2024

Hello! Welcome to this special sweet edition of The Switchboard. I’m your Editor, Julia Levy. In my quest to explore the ways we communicate and connect at work, I often find food stories to offer powerful metaphors. This is one of those posts. If the message in this article resonates, I hope you’ll share it with a friend and pass it forward to someone who might need sweetness or resilience in their work or life.

“Desserts are stressed spelled backward.” This playful palindrome on a bakery’s welcome sign captured my curiosity as a kid. A gleeful discovery, it encouraged me to embrace the sweet life of cakes, pies, and of course, cookies. It also served as a reminder to worry less.

When I read The Smart Cookie, this clever phrase came to mind once again — inspired by the story of a sprinkled cookie’s journey to find herself. From best-selling duo, author Jory John and illustrator Pete Oswald, this children’s book is described by Scholastic with this summary:

“This cookie has never felt like a smart cookie no matter how hard she tries, especially in comparison to all the clever cupcakes and brilliant rolls in the bakery. Will a dash of creativity be enough to help her learn that perfect scores aren’t the only ingredients for intelligence?”

The Smart Cookie goes to school in a gingerbread house with a teacher named Ms. Biscotti and sleeps in a cookie jar with all the other baked goods. She lacks confidence, makes spelling mistakes, and worries about her grades. One day, Ms. Biscotti assigned the students a special project to:

“create something original — anything you want – due tomorrow.”

After trying a few projects that flopped, The Smart Cookie finally writes a poem, and she is so proud of it! As each of The Smart Cookie’s classmates present their projects, we learn that each of them has different talents, such as frosting art and sprinkle machines.

Her classmates are very impressed by the poem, clapping and cheering! Ms. Biscotti tells The Smart Cookie that she was the only who could have written that poem and encourages her to keep going. After this experience, school was different for The Smart Cookie, she finally felt smart and realized:

“You can be smart in many different ways. You don’t have to have the answers to every question or suddenly be great at everything all at once. You just need a chance to try all kinds of things to find out who you are and what you like to do.”

While challenged initially to feel good enough, The Smart Cookie finally finds her way and shows her resilience through the strength of baked goods. There are similar lessons to be learned from prominent baking influencers:

Kitty Tait, a 14-year old British girl who has battled depression to open the Orange Bakery with her Dad and find “a new zest for life.”
Kathleen King, Founder of Tate’s Cookies shared her story with Guy Raz of How I Built This: after building a bakery for 20 years, her new partnership led to “bitter lawsuits, [and] Kathleen was forced to start over from scratch. 18 years later, Tate's Bake Shop – the second cookie brand that she built out of the crumbs of the first – sold for $500 million.”

As I reflected on the message of The Smart Cookie, I believe there’s a lot it can teach us about work and life — how we communicate with each other, the ways we treat our colleagues or friends and also how we treat ourselves when we face setbacks.

I reached out to several friends to ask them the cookie flavor that’s a good reminder of The Smart Cookie approach. Here’s what they had to say:

🍓 Linzer Cookie | Karon Phillips

They have so many unique aspects. It is actually made with two cookies, the center can be a variety of shapes (heart, diamond, star, etc) and it has a delicious jam in the middle. When you hear the name Linzer cookie you have a general idea of what the cookie will be BUT there are so many variations you can make. It makes me think about the uniqueness of people. You may hear a person’s name and even some basic facts about them, but you don’t know what shape their center is and what filling they have until you get to know them.

🍯 Molasses Cookie | Erica Kim

It's not the most mainstream flavor, but its blend of sweet and spicy makes it stand out. It's a delicious reminder that embracing what makes you different can lead to something truly special.

🥜 Chewy Chunky Monkey Morsels | Jeremy Caplan

These banana peanut-butter-walnut-chip micro-cookies combine some of my favorite flavors in a tiny package. Unlike other cookies that conform to a standard cookie-cutter size, these are uniquely miniature. They reflect the delicious idea that we can pack many distinct interests, flavors and textures into an appealingly quirky whole. They show how you can be odd and mixed-up, and even feel small, while remaining unique and loveable.

🧈 Cardamom Shortbread Cookies with Dark Chocolate Chips | Anastasia Cifuentes

I was experimenting in the kitchen and came upon this combo while longing for a strong, earthy spice that grounds the senses, and an energizing quality, plentiful in dark chocolate. Melded by the dusty and buttery texture of shortbread, the combination at once hones the mind and lifts the spirit - perfect to catalyze a bout of writing. Perhaps this little cookie merits the saying, Sic parvis magna — greatness from small beginnings.

🍇 Fruity Pebble Cookie | Emma Rolader Martin

Inspired by the vibrancy of Fruity Pebbles and the desire to minimize food waste, I decided to choose the Fruity Pebble Cookie from Fatbelly Pretzel and Deli in Nashville, which features leftover pretzel chunks from the deli. A harmonious blend of sweet and salty, crunchy and chewy. This cookie not only tantalizes the taste buds but also champions the cause of sustainable reuse of delicious goods.

🥨 Kitchen Sink or Compost Cookie | Selina Ang

Known for its variety of mix-ins such as coffee grounds, oats, potato chips, pretzels, and caramel or butterscotch. I appreciate the uniqueness that this cookie flavor embodies; it's a whimsical blend of seemingly unconventional ingredients that come together to create a sweet treat that is both delicious and memorable. It also teaches us about confidence -- for instance, a humble pantry item like brewed coffee grounds can take center stage, adding unexpected texture and flavor to elevate a classic treat, where it no longer needs to hide in the shadows of the traditional chocolate chip.

🌳 Almond Cookie | Ruth Stroud

I pick almond, both as a flavoring and an ingredient. Almond trees are resilient and very old. They were among the first domesticated fruit trees, appearing some 5,000 years ago in the Mediterranean. They're also a huge crop in my native California. They’re versatile and popular, an important ingredient in a lot of European and Mediterranean sweets, including almond macaroons, which my mother made and I do too.
They also happen to be gluten-free, which makes almond flour a high-demand ingredient! I often add them to several types of biscotti and Mandelbrot (almost the same as biscotti) that I like to make. They pair well with so many other ingredients, like dried cherries, chocolate chips, and raisins, and spices like cinnamon and cardamom.
Applying the best qualities of almonds to people, I’d say they’re flexible, communicate well, are distinctive without hogging the show, and hardy though a bit vulnerable as well. Wouldn’t that be a recipe for someone you’d like to know (unless you have nut allergies!)?

🍫 Lindt CLASSIC RECIPE | Cait Ushpol

My enchantment with the chocolate industry began during my nomadic upbringing – when my beloved Crunchie from early childhood in South Africa became Katzenzungen when I came of age in Austria, and finally morphed into Hu Chocolate at university in America.
Today, it is of course Lindt CLASSIC RECIPE, the first brand I have had the opportunity to work on as an Associate Brand Manager at Lindt USA. As such, my favorite cookie flavor is any cookie made with Lindt CLASSIC RECIPE -- milk chocolate so smooth and creamy, it's Beyond Words.
To me, this cookie recipe represents all three core qualities: uniqueness, resilience, and confidence. It takes all of these qualities to succeed in your first role out of university -- because you need all three to have courageous conversations, adapt to change, and build on your strengths.

🍫 Chocolate | Lily Hakim

My favorite cookie flavor is undoubtedly a deep, rich chocolate. The better the quality and richer the chocolate, the less need there is for the frills of other ingredients. A good chocolate will have depth and complexity of flavor and aroma echoing my thoughts on being unique and confident. Uniqueness and confidence stand alone without the need for excess bells and whistles.

🍫 Chocolate Chip | Steven Alexander

While simple, it serves as a reminder to remain grounded both personally and professionally. Just like the reliable chocolate chips in the cookie, staying open-minded and receptive to new perspectives can lead to rewarding outcomes.

🍫 Chocolate Chip | Lia Ballentine

Although it’s a classic, the chocolate chip cookie is the perfect embodiment of uniqueness. While the ingredients may fundamentally be the same, each cookie has its own distinct pattern of chocolate chips showcasing its individuality — and just like snowflakes, no two chocolate chip cookies are alike! Every bite of a chocolate chip cookie is a sweet reminder that in a world of uniformity there is beauty in embracing our differences.

Thank you to these wonderful friends for sharing their favorite cookies with all of us. I hope these messages bring you sweetness, confidence and encouragement on days that you might need it the most.

Thank you for being part of The Switchboard community. I’m grateful to you for reading, reacting and commenting. If you enjoyed what you read, please consider sharing it with a colleague or friend. Signing off for this edition. — Julia