“Food was an extremely important part of my childhood. My memories of home are located either in the kitchen or at the dinner table (or in the lunchroom, selling the turkey sandwiches my mom lovingly made for me).” Despite this food-centric upbringing, Danny Cohen didn’t cook much himself, and never really enjoyed baking (not a shocking bit for a teenage boy!)
Cohen became interested about 13 years ago, when he came home for Passover and asked his mother why she never made macaroons for the holiday. She said she didn't really know, but that if he wanted them, he should go ahead and do it himself. As you may know, macaroons are really, really good, so after that first batch – well, the rest is coconutty history!
Experiment became tradition, and Danny made macaroons for his (lucky) family for Passover for the next decade. At the 2010 seder, his uncle's mother-in-law (follow that?) suggested that the macaroons were tasty enough to sell. Danny had just left a job in sports media, and was trying to figure out what his next move might be. “As fate would have it, I was sitting in a coffee shop a few weeks later that had no food. I decided to bring them my macaroons to see what they thought. Lo and behold they decided to buy them. And now, here I am!”
Since that fateful day, Danny has become a fixture of the NYC indie food world. His deliciously sticky cookies use coconut that is as 'local' as possible, meaning...coconut processed by a company based in Jersey. In the early days, Danny used a hand mixer, Pyrex bowls, and spoons from his own silverware set to make tiny batches of 24. Now he goes through about 40 pounds of coconut a day, using much larger equipment. He and his small crew turn out about 1000 macaroons each day, still in smallish batches of about 96, a few of which we’re lucky enough to sell, and you (if you’re smart) are lucky enough to taste!