Five flavors, one happy office

Here in the office, we are ballooning. Please: Stop sending treats.

Of course, you know I jest, for all of us are conflicted about the holiday largesse that flows in—and in and in. We love it, it loves us, and soon, before we know it, we contain multitudes.

Let me share with you just a few of the tasty treats we have received.

First, we have grown large on two traditional standbys: Cookies from Home and Fairytale Brownies.

These companies broadcast such a swath of delicious lassitude that they must certainly work for the North Korean government or some other that wishes us ill.

The Cookies From Home arrived in, I don’t know, a million varieties. And each called to us like a siren. They were sent our way by Judge George T. Anagnost of the Peoria Municipal Court. What a wonderful guy! He has written for Arizona Attorney Magazine many times (and has another article in our December issue), and he wanted us to know how much he appreciated our help.

Cookies From Home

Note to future authors: Such butter-laden kindnesses are not required of you—though they are never forgotten.

The brownies? They came from our magazine printer, Prisma Graphic. They also arrived in a wide array of flavors. Right now, I am staring sidelong at a brownie labeled “Espresso Nib.” Curious? Yup. Salivating? You bet. Resisting? Sort of, but caving.

(You also have to love that Fairytale Brownies purchased the domain name brownies.com. Evil geniuses? Oh yeah!)

Fairytale Brownies

Another treat was sent our way by State Bar of Arizona Board of Governor member Christopher Jensen. His offering wins an award for constituent support, for he selected something from his district. The assortment from Pralines of Prescott looked great, tasted better, and made me consider getting that second home in Prescott I’ve considered before. Thank you, Chris!

Finally, let me tell you about the cake that our Membership Directory printer sent our way.

O’Neil Data Systems had me going there for a minute. The box arrived with virtually no external markings. I opened it and found the card from O’Neil and beneath that, a white box.

The box was a standard baker’s box, and inside was what appeared to be a Bundt cake of some sort. After struggling to extricate it, I found it to be almost homemade in appearance. It sat on a Reynolds Wrap-covered cardboard disk. Its paper doily was moist with what appeared to be liquid deliciousness. The cake rose to a peak like a volcanic confection. And the entire thing was wrapped in reams of Saran Wrap.

It looked like the kind of thing my family might make to take to a bake sale.

Five-Flavor Pound Cake: Worth every pound

And then we tasted it.

I won’t begin to try to describe it. Let’s just say that the holidays for me have now been captured in flour and sugar, and other wondrous ingredients.

Only after my excursion into sensuous pleasure (can I say that so close to religious holidays?) did I locate a small sticker on the box. The cake came to us from The Bread Basket, of Charlotte, North Carolina. Wondrous folk, them.

As near as I can tell, what we got from those good people at O’Neil was the Five Flavor Pound Cake. Here is the description from the Bread Basket website:

“The Five Flavor Pound Cake has been a customer favorite since its debut over 15 years ago. The flavors, lemon, butter, rum, coconut and vanilla blend together to give it a distinctive flavor. Dusted with powdered sugar, this cake serves 15 to 18 people and gets better the longer it sits on the counter.”

I cannot vouch for that last part, which must have been written by a jokester. Sit on the counter, it did not.

So we head toward 2011, larger in all things. But mainly larger in gratitude for such thoughtful colleagues.