Dec.2002 -  S A V E U R: S O U R C E
      
    Meanigful Morsels

        Alicia Lee, 72, never dreamed she’d be spending her golden years baking cheese snaps (right). But in the late 1980’s, her son Jeffrey moved into Willow River Farms in San Felipe, Texas, an outpost of the Houston-based Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation. In 1990, when the center solicited help with its NovemberFest fund-raiser, Lee offered to make fruitcakes and flew in from Washington D.C., bearing her favorite recipe. She had so much fun and the cakes were such a hit that she became a regular at the annual event. In 1995, Lee moved back to her native Houston and began volunteering at both the center and former president Bush’s office. One day, after tasting Lee’s fruitcake, an impressed Barbara Bush suggested that she branch out into gingersnaps. Two months and countless batches of cookies later (“I’m picky,” says Lee), she presented a sample to the former first lady – who ordered 48 tins on the spot and raved to her friends. Lee’s baking quickly expanded into a full-time mail-order business, with all profits benefiting the center. Today the offerings, made by a team of 50 volunteers and sold under the Willow River Farms label, include not only fruitcake and gingersnaps but also irresistible cheese snaps – added last year when Lee wanted “something savory that would go with wine.”