When the calendar says, "Baking Demo: Cookies with Patrick," folks gather around.  Today, Patrick Boylan, a baker at Thompson Senior Living Communities, shared his family recipe for the favorite molasses cookies!  Patrick did his training at Le Cordon Bleu in New Hampshire and has quite some skills in the baking department.  He demostrated how he assembles a batch of the molasses cookies and while he prepared the dough in his very own orange kitchenaid mixer (a gift from his Mom) he told us about the baked goods he prefers to make in our kitchen.  He loves to decorate cakes and cookies.  One of his other family recipes that he prepares for the residents is a raspberry cheesecake.  He enjoys baking and decorating wedding cakes and says that his passion came from his mother's love of baking.  it was a special treat to meet one of our talented cooks and to hear some of his personal story.  Thank you Patrick!  

Making artificial poppies is a long-standing tradition and today we all pitched in to help the local Veterans Affairs assemble poppies. Close to 400 poppies were assembled and we had a good time sharing stories and remembering our own experiences with the symbolic poppy.  

Ireland forever!