Photographs, Unexpected Tragedy & Cookies!

I recently wrote an essay called the "Comforts of Baking" that will be featured in the upcoming food section of Cape Cod Magazine. They want to visit soon to take photographs of a few of my recipes to complement the article. It should be fun. One of the recipes is for pancakes with raspberries and slivered almonds. The recipe is one of my kids favorites and I'm sure they'll be glad to get to eat them after the photo shoot.

Over this past weekend we had my husband's mom visiting from Texas. My sister planned to drive down from Central MA to join us for dinner and to catch up with family. Sadly, she was struck by an unexpected tragedy-a car driven by a teenager who had been drinking lost control of his car and slammed into the front door of her house! The car went up in flames and lit her entire home on fire.

It was truly unbelievable. Thank God she made it out safe although her beloved cat died in the blaze. I drove up that morning to see it for myself and felt my heart deeply aching for her unexpected loss.

I had chocolate chip cookies and cranberry biscotti already baked so I packaged some to share with her. I know it didn't do much that morning but usually a good tasting sweet treat can brighten just about any one's day.
As our company headed back to Dallas I asked them if they'd stop by to drop some of my cookies off at the home of a previous neighbor. From what I hear the cookies really brightened her day as well-- I did it simply because I know she is the kind of person that would really appreciate it.

Maybe there is someone you know that is either lonely, feeling blue or experiencing an unexpected hardship and you don't quite know what to do to help. What about starting with the simplicity of sharing a fresh baked batch of cookies?