Another Fond Farewell to someone who wisely took the severance package

Today was a day to see another farewell.  After being held in limbo for awhile, our colleague, who actually worked for another institution was offered a severance package based upon a current salary and benefits for a new position at a considerably lower pay level for one year.  Since the amount for one year at the lower salary was going to be about the same as the severance package - what would you do?  Take the severance and look for another job pertinent to experience and salary history. That is what our friend did.

Our colleague in the center has to move on!

Not a bad spread!

Chinese dumplings are always a hit even in a heart pan!

Potatoes, tomatoes, olives...it's a new salad concept!

We sent her off with a little bit of everything for brunch and cake hour.  Turkish potato salad, homemade Chinese dumplings, hard boiled eggs in soy sauce, guava cake, madeleines, bakery items from the Yerushalayim bakery and a gluten free squash mess. Not a bad little feast.  The homemade items were very good. This was the first time we had potato salad with tomatoes. The dumplings were very light in comparison to some of those dense ones you see commercially.  The hard boiled eggs were interesting and the squash casserole was, well, let's say indescribable and leave it at that. There was too much food so the bakery items were pushed to cake hour with the exception of the madeleines.

Fond farewell among colleagues and friends!

Whoever heard of the Yerushalyim (Jerusalem) bakery

Hard to tell what it was and hard to describe what it was!

It was a good send off and we wish our colleague and friend well.

The ladies altogether in the end.!

Chilling with our new BFF (kind of)

For several years now we have had research postdocs from one particular other department.  The first was one of our cake hour buddies and the subject of many a cake hour story. He has moved on to the black hole of the clinical service though occasionally stops by.  Our new postdoc who started this year signed up for cake hour for the second time today. Unlike the first time, when she got sidetracked and never made for a piece of the cake she brought, this time she was able to hang around.

This is cake box?

Nope, it's a pie box!

And a good size pie to boot!

Is there only air under this domed crust?

She brought in a creation from Gregg's which was in probably the largest box for a cake we had encountered. It looked like it would be an awesome cake but turned out to be an awesome apple pie. Very vertical to say the least. We've had pies like this before and usually as the apples cook they compress and there is a huge space under the top crust. The pie may look great but it is mostly air.  That was not the case with this one.  There was a pile of apples right under neath the dome that the crust mad. Truth be told if this had been cooked longer it might have been also full of space rather than This made for a really challenging pie cutting experience since there were so many apples it was difficult to hold a piece together. We managed to pull it off, however and everyone got to enjoy a fairly intact slice.

No doubt a very vertical pie!

Looks great but tough to cut!

Like everything Greggs does this was well made and a bit over the top. The crust was a little thick but good and the apples well seasoned, well sweetened and not overcooked. Given the size it went pretty fast.  When today's person asked what she should bring we mentioned anything with whipped cream.  To fulfill that she brought in the materiel and freshly whipped some cream to go with the pie. How great was that. This made us really appreciate her that much more.

Notice the bowl of fresh whipped cream!

To have even more fun. I texted the former fellow saying how we were sharing cake hour with our new favorite from their department also pretending to not remember the former postdoc's name.  Said postdoc showed up about 5 minutes later apparently not wanting his cake hour status to be challenged by some research parvenu. Nothing like a little guilt trip to get someone to respond!