Here’s Dot’s Congo Bars recipe. (They freeze really well!)

Here’s a Friday flashback recipe for you. Dot’s Congo Bars. My MIL Dorothy Trocheck was a prodigious cookie baker. Widowed with five kids, while in her forties, she’d never worked outside the home, didn’t drive. Somehow she made ends meet—by taking in sewing, clipping coupons and sheer faith. Every Christmas she baked thousands of cookies and would gift cookie platters to everyone in her orbit. The Congo bars were a family favorite. She used to pack them in a shoebox and send them to me when I was in college. This butter-splattered recipe card is probably almost 50 years old now. This week I made a batch of Congo bars to send with our grandsons on their fishing trip with our son Andy and his wife Meghan. Somewhere up in heaven, Dottie is clapping her hands and saying “Thank God, honey!” #familyrecipe #cookiemonsters #homemadelove

Walked to drugstore to pick up meds—-love @avondalepharmacy our hometown indie, detoured to @cremalosa_gelato to check out the fig gelato—OMGee so good! Dropped in at @thebookbirdae to check on tix sales for Friday night event with @lisascottoline—(still room for more—yall should come) Our little town’s business district is finally reaching critical mass. Come check us out. #avondaleestates #shopindie #hometownlove