Chocolate Raspberry Maryann Cake

This cake is dangerously delicious.  Consider yourself warned.  It's a match made in heaven, dark chocolate and raspberry, definitely rich, but not too sweet.  It was the perfect cake to celebrate the engagement of my daughter Melissa and my soon to be son-in-law, Mike, another match made in heaven.  Let me digress for a moment.  You may have noticed that I've neglected my blog for a while.  It's not that I haven't wanted to blog, I've just been busy.  Last month Paul and I headed west and toured the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion National Parks, Monument Valley and Lake Powell.  We had a fantastic time and when we returned home, I intended to sort though my 2000 new photos, do some inspired cooking and blog about some wonderful southwestern food.  But you can see by the large gap since my last posting, that never happened.
A few days after we returned home, Melissa and Mike announced their engagement.  Not only did they announce their engagement, but they also announced that the did not want a long engagement and planned to get married this September.  Yes, I said THIS SEPTEMBER...time to kick it in gear.  They are young, they are in love, and they have energy.  They will make this happen even if it kills them!  All wedding craziness aside, I couldn't be happier for them.  Melissa found her soulmate and we are so pleased to welcome Mike into our family.  They complement each other...just like chocolate and raspberry.

Saturday night, Mike's mother hosted a dinner in celebration of Mike and Melissa's engagement.  My job was to bring dessert.  After much consideration I decided to make a Chocolate Raspberry Maryann Cake and this tart.  If you are not familiar with a Maryann pan, take a look at it here.   I've read that Crate and Barrel also carries them.  It's sort of an old fashioned cake pan, so maybe your grandma has one buried in the cupboard.

Fudge Brownie Kisses and Swirls

Valentines Day is a good excuse to make something chocolate, isn't it?  Last year I made chocolate soufflés, my personal favorite.  This year I decided to make Paul some brownies.  A big batch of brownies is really something we don't need to have hanging around the house.  Instead of a big pan of traditional brownies, I thought I'd make some brownie bites using a mini cupcake pan.  The last time I made them they were a big hit.  Maybe it was the Nutella I swirled in the batter.  Paul had just discovered the wonders of Nutella.  They were really fudgy and one little brownie bite was the perfect sized chocolate fix.

For Valentines Day I decided to swirl some with raspberry jam, some with Nutella, and top a few with a little Hershey's Kiss.  I used a basic brownie recipe, but the add-ins make them special.  As I am writing this I just thought to myself, I should have swirled in some peanut butter.  That would be wonderful!  Oh wait, then I would be making them more for me.  Anyway, this recipe makes about 50 bites, so you can experiment if you so desire.  Sorry Paul, you can't have all 50.  I'm packing up a box and the rest are headed to my office.  There are a few chocoholics working there as well.

I hope you all have a Happy Valentine's Day and share it with someone you love!

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.” 
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-The-Pooh

Gingerbread Heaven, Spice Up Your Life!

This is not a gingerbread for anyone who may be afraid of a little spice. It has beaucoup spice.  It has a deep, dark, rich flavor. It is ooey, gooey, and yes, a little bit chewy and did I mention it is delicious?  Well, it is.  I discovered this recipe a few years ago and have loved it ever since.  It was developed by a chef at the Gramercy Tavern.  I don't believe it is offered on their menu any longer, but the recipe is alive and well thanks to the internet.  This recipe has been written about so much, I hesitated to blog about it for fear of sounding redundant.  But if even one gingerbread lover reads it here and decides to give it a try, my efforts will not have been in vain.  I have no personal story about this cake, but I do have some strong words of advice.  Heed my warning and you will be rewarded.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Squares

Are you sick of pumpkin yet?  I'm not.  Pumpkin is one of those things that most people either love or hate.  I fall into the first category.  As much as I like pumpkin, I only cook with it in the fall.  Thanksgiving is the end of pumpkin season for me.  Earlier this week I made penne with a pumpkin sage sauce for dinner.  I used some canned pumpkin to make the sauce leaving me with a cup of pumpkin to either use, or let it sit in the fridge for the week and eventually end up in the compost bin.  A cup of pumpkin usually finds its way into a small batch of muffins, but I was feeling somewhat adventurous and decided to do something different.

Philly Fluff Cake

Yesterday was a freakishly cold and snowy day here in NY.  It was the kind of day that begged for the oven to be turned on.  It would have been the perfect day to have something slow roast in the oven, adding a little extra warmth to the house.  We were meeting friends for dinner, so there was no need to cook.  If it were December, it would have been the perfect day to bake Christmas cookies.  But it was not December.  I sat in front of the fire for a while and read through a bunch of recipes I had clipped from magazines and newspapers.  I remember cutting out a recipe for Philly Fluff cake a while back, and was hoping it was in that file.  My memory did not fail me.  I found the clipping taken from the newspaper on May 10, 2000.  Seriously, I remembered that?  After reading the recipe, I realized it called for an odd sized kugelhopf pan???  Definitely don't have a kugelhopf pan.  I jumped on the internet to research an equivalent, and came across an updated recipe that called for a larger bundt pan.  That, I had.

When I do my grocery shopping, I am always on the lookout for good sales on baking staples.  I'm talking about butter, cream cheese, chocolate, nuts, different flours and sugars among other things.  Last week I picked up a bunch of cream cheese and some 60% cocoa, bittersweet chocolate.  As I was putting the cream cheese in the fridge, Philly Fluff came into my head.

Swedish Apple Cake

October is flying by all to quickly.  I've wanted to share this recipe for some time now, I just haven't had the chance. It's a simple coffee cake, that tastes and smells like autumn.  Apples are the star in this cake, accompanied by a little cinnamon.  It's really nothing fancy, just plain old fashioned goodness.

Most of the apples from this year's apple picking adventure have been turned into apple sauce or apple butter and are tucked away on a shelf in the basement.  I had promised Paul an appley dessert, but had difficulty narrowing down what I felt like making.  He was pushing for a pie, but I prefer to make a pie when there are enough mouths around to consume it in a day.  Day-old pie just doesn't cut it in my book.  I wanted to make something that would last a few days, have an apple forward flavor, and not be overloaded with spice.  Oh yeah,  and I wanted something that Paul could put vanilla ice cream on so he won't think about the fact that I didn't make him a pie.  And then I remembered this recipe...Sockerkaka Med Applen, aka, Swedish Apple Cake.

Brandied Peaches, Tucked Away for Winter

If you recall, the weekend before last was my frenzied weekend of canning, cooking, baking and general stickiness.  I think this year was a stellar year for peaches.  It saddens me to think that they will soon be gone.  I picked up a few pounds of peaches that weekend to tuck away for a dreary winter's day.  Peaches go great with booze, as you may already know.  I posted a simple recipe for Peachy Boozy Turnovers a few weeks ago. The turnovers were spiked with bourbon.  I decided to preserve my peaches with the addition of brandy this time.  After all, it was still sitting on the counter having just finished making my fig jam.


To be honest, I have not made brandied peaches in years.  I believe fruit is best eaten fresh.  I never, ever, ever buy canned fruit.  We only eat fruit in season or occasionally use frozen fruit to make a smoothie.  I just couldn't bear the thought of the end of peach season.  A few jars tucked away will be a welcome treat in the midst of winter.  Canning the peaches in an a light syrup spiked with brandy is not a substitute for fresh fruit.  I like to think of brandied peaches as an ingredient for something bigger, like a peach shortcake or a crepe stuffed with peaches and vanilla ice cream.  How about serving them on Christmas morning with your French toast?  Use your imagination!

Summer... Baked in a Tart

     My dad loved bakeries.  Actually, what he really loved were baked goods.  If my mom did not keep him supplied in his favorite desserts, he would eventually find his way to a local bakery.  Not all bakeries were created equal in his mind, so different bakeries filled different needs.  Everbest Bakery was the place to go for Sunday morning rolls, coconut buns and danish.  George's was the place to get a California crumb cake to bring to Aunt Ann and Uncle Joe's down in Rockaway on Saturday night.  Riesterers had the best Christmas specialties, like Linzer torte and gingerbread.  Malverne bakery was his go to place for open fruit cakes, tarts and pies.  I loved to go to the Malverne Bakery with him.  On a RARE occasion, he would bring home a 7 layer cake.  I always hoped that he would spring for a chocolate cake, but oddly enough, the man who loved his desserts, hated chocolate cake.  The Malverne bakery had the BEST chocolate cake!  I had experience their chocolaty perfection many times at my friends' birthday parties.  I don't know why I went with him.  It was such a disappointment when he picked the fruit tart or french apple cake.  When I was 8 years old, I firmly believed that fruit had no place on a cake, and peach skin, BLAH!  Now that 8 years old is just a distant memory, I've learned that there is life beyond chocolate and fruit has its place in the world of desserts.
      I love the look of a fresh fruit tart.  I love the delicate golden crust.  I love the perfection of the fruit.  I love the glisten of the glaze.  The perfect fruit tart is a feast for the eyes and as well as the soul.  A fresh fruit tart is a fitting dessert for weekend BBQ or a New England Clam Bake.  It is a celebration of the season baked in a crust.  I usually bake simple tarts.  I choose a fruit in the season, bake it in a sweet buttery crust and lightly brush the whole thing with an orange or apricot glaze.   But every once in a while, I pull out all the stops and go for the bells and whistles.  I'm talking custard, berries, peaches, kiwi and yes, just a touch of bourbon.

Peachy Boozy Turnovers

I'm making my adjustment back to the civilized (or so they say it is) world slowly.  After spending some time enjoying the peace and quiet of the Adirondacks, it's hard to dive back into the rat race.   I ran out to the farmer's market early this morning to pick up some lettuce (mine bolted) and corn, then ran home in record time.  I'm not ready to deal with traffic and people just yet.  My mind is stuck somewhere between a mountain lake and a field of wildflowers.

I've spent the day sorting through photos, catching up on my reading and generally wasting time.  I had a brief spurt of ambition and decided to check out the fridge.  Melissa stayed at our house and dog sat while we were away, so I hadn't emptied the fridge before our trip.  I had hoped that she used the produce I left behind.  I bought some very firm peaches the day before we left and I guess Melissa was not into peaches.  A peach dessert,  I thought to myself...but it has to be quick and easy with minimal oven time since the AC is running full blast.  Still in vacation mode, I decided to pair up the peaches with something boozy like bourbon.  Sure I thought, bourbon will do just fine...and so my easy, peachy, boozy turnovers were born.  Hmmm, right before we went away I made Apricot Riesling Jam,  I have chicken marinating in tequila and lime.  Do I see a trend here?

Blueberry Peach Crostata, Rustic Yumminess

So, it's Father's Day.  I have to be honest and fess-up. I have an issue with Father's Day.  It's sort of bittersweet in the truest sense of the word.   I feel a bit guilty on this day.  I've always wanted to recognize Paul, and give him his "due respect" for being the father of our two children, but it has always been overshadowed with the sadness of losing my own father on this very day.  This is the 25th anniversary of my dad's passing.  Somehow this year I feel different.  Maybe it's because my mom is with him after all these years.  He is not alone anymore.  I am grateful for the time I had with my dad, and I am happy that he at least had a few short years to experience  "grandpahood".  He was such a proud grandpa!

So this year is Paul's year.  Not once did I say,"You're not my father" like I usually say.  Instead I said, "it's your day!"  Paul chose the day's activities...or lack of activities.  He chose his father's day feast menu and of course chose dessert.  I did not allow him free reign mind you, I supplied him with a list of options.  Later in the week I'll tell you about the spicy shrimp on the barbie.  Now is the time to talk dessert.  I gave Paul the option of a fruit tart or a rustic crostata.   Not ever having a crostata before, his interest was piqued.
A crostata is like a freeform pie.  You have a lot of freedom to choose fillings and spices, easy to customize to any taste.  I chose to make blueberry-peach crostata, spiced with cinnamon, ginger and a hint of nutmeg.  A blueberry inspiration after a trip to the farmer's market this morning.

A food processor makes the whole process a breeze.  You can mix the dough for the crust ahead of time, the crumb topping too.  Just roll it out and add the fruit filling shortly before dinner and your crostata will be perfect for dessert.  The crust is a basic butter pastry.  I like Ina Garten's pastry from her apple crostata.  You can use any butter pastry you like if you have a favorite.  Adjust the fruit and spice to your liking.

We Love Our Madeleines

I didn't start my love affair with madeleines until a few years ago.  Well, it's not a love affair, but I really am quite fond of them.   I don't know how or why I became enamored with them, I just did.   Ten years ago, Costco or Entenmann's didn't make them, at least not to my knowledge.  I think I saw the pans at Williams Sonoma, and fell in love with those delicate shell pans.  When I was a little girl, I loved story time.  One of my favorite books that our school librarian, Mrs. Connelly, would read to my class was Madeline, written by Ludwig Bemelmans.   "In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.  In two straight lines they broke their bread and brushed their teeth and went to bed.  They smiled at the good and frowned at the bad and sometimes they were very sad. They left the house at half past nine in two straight lines in rain or shine — the smallest one was Madeline."  Seriously, I think my memory of this book made me delve into the world of madeleines.  Madeleines too, are usually baked twelve to a pan and in two straight lines and they are French....interesting.

I started out with one pan, and quickly realized that two pans are better than one.  Most recipes yield 24 madeleines.  The first recipe I tried was a Barefoot Contessa, coconut madeleine recipe.  It was a big, big hit with the family.  I tried many others - chocolate madeleines, orange madeleines, chocolate dipped madeleines, vanilla infused madeleines, almond madeleines and lemon madeleines.  To this day, the coconut madeleines remain the favorite with the family.  Personally, I adore these lemony lovelies by David Lebovitz.  If you LOVE lemon, by all means, try them.  If you are like the rest of my cocoNUTTY family, I think you will enjoy these.

Make Ahead Chocolate Souffles

What's not to love about chocolate souffle?  They may not be the most convenient thing to make, but they sure taste good.  I think chocolate souffle is the perfect dessert for Valentine's Day.  First of all, it's CHOCOLATE!  It's light and sophisticated. And most of all... you will be loved and appreciated by the recipient.   I spent the better part of the evening a few days ago searching for my souffle recipe.  It has vanished off the face of the earth.  I searched organized binders filled with recipes, no luck.  I'm convinced someone swiped it  borrowed it and misplaced it.  I'm not saying who, but I have a pretty good idea who, as evidenced by pictures of souffles (taken in my kitchen) on a Facebook page.  It's better to let it go and move on.  Sometimes things happen for a reason.  I found a better recipe.

Better recipe?  I think so.  After reading countless recipes, and trying to remember my old favorite, I came across this recipe in The New Best Recipe  from the Editors of Cooks Illustrated.  This cookbook is a massive collection of "exhaustively tested recipes" from America's Test Kitchen.  These folks have never steered me wrong, so I decided to take the chance.  These souffles are made ahead.  They must be frozen for at least 3 hours and can stay in the freezer for up to a week before baking.  How awesome is that?  If you are having a dinner party you can make them a day or a week in advance and just bake them off in less than 20 minutes while you are clearing away the dinner dishes, perfect timing.  Not having a dinner party?  Make up a batch or half a batch, freeze them and you have dessert for 2, 4 or just for yourself if you are so inclined in 20 minutes. This really has the potential for being a "go to" dessert.  They pop directly into the oven from the freezer, no thawing involved.  The outside of these souffles have a wonderful flavor and texture with a rich moist center.  Seriously, you have to try them.  Look what's in my freezer drawer!

Aunt Dot's Rugelach

I guess if you had to assign a signature recipe to my mother, this would be it.  Every Christmas, my mom would make a tray of home baked cookies to take to her sister's house or my cousin's house, depending upon who was doing Christmas that year.  Her choice of cookies changed from year to year, but the one constant that remained was her rugelach.  She baked them exclusively for the holidays, and it was expected that they would be present on every tray.  They were everyone's favorite.  They became known as Aunt Dot's Rugelach.  Even I call them Aunt Dot's rugelach, and she is my mother.  "Did Aunt Dot make her rugelach?" or "Aunt Dot's rugelach is here" is how we were usually greeted at the door.  My cousins and I all had the same idea to sneak one off the tray before dinner; heck no one would notice just one missing.  The problem was, when you multiply 10 or 12 people sneaking just one cookie, it gets noticed.  My mother, wise woman that she was, eventually brought an extra tin of rugelach along to fill in the holes.

  

My mom use to bake her rugelach with a raisin and nut filling.  It wasn't until I took over the Christmas baking, that I began to add some apricot or raspberry jam.  Sometimes I'd fill them with a cocoa-chocolate bit filling.  You can use any jam or dried fruit that you like.   I find it easier to mix the pastry the night before I want to bake the cookies.  I mix the dough, wrap the dough in wax paper and refrigerate it overnight.  I take the dough out of the refrigerator an hour before I am ready to roll the pastry and they are the perfect temperature.  They take a little time to make, but they are well worth the effort.  Add some rugelach to your cookie tray this year.  My mom would be happy!

Cookie bags for EVERYONE!

Heath Bar Shortbread Meltaways

Christmas has been sneaking up on me.  Thanks to the internet, my shopping is now under control .  It's a quiet weekend.  Paul is away visiting his family.  Today was the perfect day to start my holiday baking.  I sat with a cup of coffee this morning, looking through cookbooks, reading tattered recipe cards, and pulling out cookie recipes that I've been collecting all year.  I thought I'd spend the day mixing batters, baking off some cookies and freezing the rest.  I wanted to use ingredients that I had on hand.  I've been squirreling away cookie-baking ingredients since October.

I finally decided to start my first day of holiday cookie baking by making my mom's rugelach recipe, her spritz cookies, some sparkling ginger chip cookies, russian tea cakes, peanut butter cookies, and I was thinking of making some shortbread cookies.

I've been a busy baking elf today

This morning I came across a hand written shortbread recipe that my mom probably wrote back in the '60s.  I remembered that she liked them with her afternoon tea.  They weren't too sweet and they melted in your mouth.  I was thinking of jazzing them up with some chocolate, either chopped and added to the batter, or better yet, maybe I would dip the baked shortbread in some dark chocolate.  I started pulling all of my ingredients out of the pantry and lo and behold, a bag of Heath Bar chips was tucked between a bar of Belgium chocolate and a bag of chocolate chips.  I bought them because one of Paul's favorite candy bars is a Heath Bar.  I didn't have anything in mind to bake when I bought them.  I don't know what possessed me to do it, maybe I was missing Paul, but I decided to go a little crazy and add the Heath Bar chips to the shortbread and heck....dip them in chocolate as well.

The Best Chocolate Cake

I have the recipe for the best chocolate cake.  Yes, that is a BOLD statement, but I truly believe that it's a TRUE statement.  If you made this cake, you would understand where I am coming from.  For me to consider a chocolate cake to be really good, it has to meet a certain criteria.  Here is my criteria for what I believe constitutes a good chocolate cake:

This is what my best chocolate cake looks like

1. A good chocolate cake should not be a mere vehicle for frosting or butter cream.  A good chocolate cake should be able to stand on its own.
2. A good chocolate cake should have depth of flavor.
3. The only after taste a good chocolate cake should have is chocolate.
4. A good chocolate cake should have a fine crumb.
5. A good chocolate cake should be moist, and remain fresh if properly stored, for a few days (if you hide it from your husband the masses).
6. When a good chocolate cake is baking, it should fill the air with an aroma that stops people dead in their tracks and makes them think they have died and gone to heaven.
7. When you eat a small piece of a good chocolate cake, you contemplate each bite and nothing else in the world matters.
8. When my husband eats you eat an even bigger piece of a good chocolate cake, you break out in a  chocolate sweat, right between your upper lip and your nose.
9. A good chocolate cake makes your mouth feel happy.

Last weekend we were invited to a dinner party and I volunteered to bring dessert.  I did not not know everyone attending, so I thought it safe to bring one chocolate dessert and one non-chocolate dessert.   The only chocolate cake I considered bringing was this Chocolate Guinness Cake.  The Guinness and the little bit of molasses, not to mention the brown sugar, give this moist cake a deep, complex flavor. Yes, it was the right choice.

Apple Spice Cake

It seems as if cake and desserts have undergone somewhat of an evolution over the past twenty years.  Dessert is so much more sophisticated than it used to be.  Maybe it really isn't, but since the advent of The Food Network and the internet, it sure seems that way.  Sophistication has its place, but sometimes I just want to make a cake that is homey and nostalgic.  I came across this Apple Spice Cake recipe on this site.  After reading all the comments, I had to give it a try.  This is one of the simplest cakes in the world to make.  It satisfied my nostalgic urge, that just-like-mother-used-to-make kind of cake.  It was heavenly with a cup of coffee and stayed moist for days.   My dad would have loved this cake.  He was a no-nonsense cake kind of guy; he didn't go for cakes with mounds of frosting.  He loved coffee cakes, pound cakes, pies and anything my mom would bake in this pan.

I have a nice bundt pan, but to add to the nostalgia, I thought my mom's old tube pan would be appropriate.  It's an old soldier.  This pan has to be at least 50 or 60 years old and bakes cakes like a charm.  I line the bottom with parchment or wax paper so it doesn't leak....this pan has been through a lot.  I tweaked the recipe just a little to reduce the amount of fat.  I also used a combination of brown and white sugar, just because I like the brown sugar - cinnamon combo.  I hope you like it too.

Ricotta Cheesecake: A Fitting End to the Start of Gravy Season

What's the matter?  You never heard of gravy season?  Gravy season starts shortly after Labor Day when the temperature outside is cool enough to spend the day inside over a pot of Italian meats and sauce.  I'm not going to get into the "is it gravy or is it tomato sauce?" debate.  Paul and I are fortunate enough to have friends like Barbara and Rob who take gravy season very seriously, no debate involved.  That's why when we got an invitation to The Italian Kitchen  for the inaugural pot of gravy, I knew I had to come up with just the right dessert.  Deciding on the right dessert can be tricky.  After all, everyone would be pigging out dining on pasta covered in homemade gravy with out-of-this-world meatballs, sausage and homemade braciole,  not to mention everything we would be eating and drinking before dinner...that's a whole other story.  I wanted to make something Italian and rustic, yet I wanted to keep it light.  I decided to make this light, almost souffle-like Ricotta Cheesecake and top it off with a Strawberry-Raspberry Coulis.

Cheesecake, coulis and fresh fruit

Robert and Barbara in their swanky new kitchen

Get to work Paul!

Mangia!

One Good Turn Deserves Another Almond Tart

I've been busy in the kitchen.  My brother Don was in town for a few days.  He lives in Florida and by this time of the year, he has had it with the hot weather.  Needless to say, he wanted to bottle up our cool breezy New York weather and take it back to Florida.  I appreciate it too.  Cool weather invites me into the kitchen.  I literally have hundreds of recipes bookmarked and dog-eared, waiting to be made, but when you experience one of the hottest summers on record, it is easy to put off lighting the oven, or standing over the hot stove until cooler weather prevailed. 
I owed my brother a good dinner.  You see, Paul bought a new kitchen faucet sometime last winter on an impulse buy.  It's been sitting in my basement in the box, taunting me every time I walk by.  I would nag suggest to Paul that it would be nice to actually see the faucet functioning, at least once a week for the past few months.  Knowing that this faucet installation could potentially turn into a plumbing nightmare, Paul had no intention of installing it by himself did not want to brave it alone.  Don's visit was the impetus for Paul to tackle the job; with Don's help of course, they did it.

Technically it is still summer, but the cool-ish temperatures warranted a fall-ish menu for the "good deed" dinner.  I'll get to the actual dinner in another post.  I want to start with dessert.  I chose to start with dessert because I've been dying to make this...

and didn't want this evil thing lurking around the house with just me and Paul at home.  I adore almond desserts.  Years ago, a time which I fondly refer to as "in my previous life", I lived in Santa Cruz, California..  I frequented a cafe, India Joze, that make the most delectable Mazarin Torte.  Mazarin Torte and a pot of Chai...it was the stuff of which dreams are made.  I discovered this recipe for an Almond Tart that I think comes pretty darn close.

Isn't That Just Peachy: Peach Blueberry Cake

When I started this blog, I fully intended to write at least one entry a week.  I've been negligent.  It's not that I haven't been cooking; far from it.  I've just been enjoying summer too much.  I have a ton of pictures and quite a few recipes that I planned on blogging about.  I've written the blogs in my head.  I usually do that when I have trouble sleeping, which is quite often.  I have to restrain myself from getting out of bed in the middle of the night and jumping on the computer.  I've learned that can be counterproductive to my sleep cycle. So my big dilemma is, where do I start?  Since I am smelling the aroma of freshly baked peach blueberry cake, I guess I will start there.

Sayonara Sushi

I have a love/hate relationships with my job.   Generally speaking, it can be very rewarding.  On the other hand, it can be very frustrating, bordering on depressing.  I help people with disabilities prepare for, find, and maintain employment.  In this economy, it is more than challenging.  The bright side of my day however, is being a part of an AWESOME team of women who face this challenge as a force to be reckoned with.  I am sad to say, but also happy for her, that our youngest team member, Morgan, is moving on...... to bigger and better things.

Morgan is a vocational rehabilitation counselor who has been part of our team for the last 3 years.  She has been a ray of light with a youthful exuberance that will be sorely missed.  Fran, friend and colleague, was gracious enough to host a "farewell brunch" for Morgan.  Since Morgan loves sushi and chocolate, I thought it only fitting to make Morgan some Brownie Sushi for her send-off.