The Story Behind the Cookbook
In September 2005, Captain Melissa Metz, USMC, deployed to Al Asad, Iraq with several Marines from the Joint Law Center at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, North Carolina. Melissa loved to bake, and decided that she wouldn't let a deployment to the desert stop that! Thus, the idea for Desserts from the Desert was born, thanks to a great suggestion from her fellow Marine attorney Geoff Hengerer.
Although she worked long days providing legal services for her fellow deployed Marines, she never stopped "baking." She just didn't have an oven! So, as the unofficial motto of the Marine Corps goes, she adapted and overcame. She found a microwave and used whatever ingredients she could buy at the Post Exchange, take from the chow hall, or have mailed to her by friends and family. And every dessert she made, the Marines ate!
Melissa and her fellow Marine co-workers returned home safely to North Carolina in February 2006. Desserts from the Desert is a compilation of all the recipes she created during that deployment, along with photographs of her and her fellow Marines.
