Hi folks:

If you have a sweet tooth, we are siblings, for certain. Cookies are a delight when they are soft. When they are hard enough to draw blood, crack a tooth, or require extensive dental work, not so much.

So how do you keep them moist and soft? A piece of bread will do the trick. Here’s how: Put your cookies in a Tupperware-type container and add a piece of bread. Seal the container and there you go. If your cookies have gotten concrete-like, it may take a couple of days to soften them up, but this works like a champ. [Please note that you do not want to reuse the bread. it will become as hard as a rock. When rigor mortis has set in on the bread, replace it with a new slice (if any cookies remain; at my house, the chance of cookie leftovers is slim to none).]

On to the fruit pizza recipe. You need to make a batch of your favorite sugar cookie recipe, rolling out the dough and placing it on a pizza pie pan. If you are in a hurry or don’t have a favorite sugar cookie recipe, you are a more lazy cook than I am- or time efficient. The ready-made cookie dough works just as well, if you can roll it out. Bake as directed. Chop up your favorite fruit, such as strawberries, grapes, kiwi, blueberries (don’t chop the blueberries; leave them whole), and the like. Set them aside.

As the cooked cookie cools (say that three times fast!), heat one bar of Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese in your microwave until it gets soft. When you are able to stir it (usually after 1 1/2 to 2 minutes in the microwave), stir in one box of confectioner’s sugar.

Once those ingredients are totally mixed, spread the mixture onto the cooled cookie (leave the cookie on the pizza pie pan or you will regret it).

While you are decoratively putting your fruit on the fruit pizza, heat up one small jar of apricot jam in the microwave (about one minute). When you have your fruit arranged in a pleasant way (circles work best, here, but be creative), stir the apricot jam and then spread it on top of the fruit pizza. (Note: The apricot jam cuts the feeling of too much sweet in the fruit pizza). Refrigerate your fruit pizza until you are ready to eat it.

Please note that you cannot make this a day ahead or it will become soggy. You must eat it the day it is made, so either eat a lot of it or send it home with friends. It does not keep well overnight. It should be refrigerated, even if you try to beat the odds and eat it over two days. It will be very wet the second day and following, but it is still edible.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Hello everyone:

Traveling has become a recent occurrence in my life ever since my mother died. About once a month, I go from Point A to Point B to visit my elderly father.

One thing I learned pretty quickly was that it is very easy to lose your car in a 9-story parking garage at the airport. Covered parking is only one of the options available at the airport, so how do you know where you left your car when you get back? I have run into folks who were clueless, telling me, “Oh, I left my car in the garage. Won’t the bus take me back to it?”

Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. The bus, if you hop on the right one, will take you to the garage. Keep in mind that there are a boatload of parking options at larger airports, so which bus will you get on? Daily? Long term A? Long term B? Amtrak? Metro? You get the idea.

Let’s say you get on the right bus. Now, at which stop do you get off? With the Daily Parking Garage, you have four more choices. Then you have to decide which floor to go to. There are nine options with this decision.

“Whoa,” you might say. “Slow down here.”

Let’s work through this backwards, to figure out how to find your vehicle. You arrive at the airport and decide on the Daily garage. Superb. If this is the first time you parked there, write it down. Next, pull into the parking space, making note of which floor, which aisle, and which space you are in. For example, 7H 42. Write it down and put the piece of paper somewhere you can find it easily. Do not leave it in your car. Do, on the other hand, leave your parking ticket in the car (see the next paragraph).

Make sure you put enough cash in your car, along with the parking lot entrance ticket, to pay for your parking expenses when you get back. You may return from your trip penniless. (My record is 25 cents.) That way, you can get your car out of hock without having to go to a strange ATM with your suitcases in tow.

Do not lose the parking ticket or you will have to fill out forms galore and prove when you took off and landed, in order to get out of the garage. I will be the poor, in-a-hurry slob behind you in the cash payment line who has to wait for you to fill out the form, pay through the nose for your parking, and chat with the employee about how unfair it is….I’ve been behind plenty of those folks and had some unkind thoughts about them during the ten minutes it took them to pay their way out of the garage. Help me keep my Baptist, folks. Don’t lose that ticket!

So, you are on the right bus. Take a minute and locate your piece of paper that has your floor, aisle, and parking space written on it. Get off the bus when you get to the garage, take all of your baggage (and small children) with you, take the elevator to the right floor, and there’s your space!

Best,

Dr. Sheri