Chicken Salad and Coffee Mud Pie à la Cork ‘N Cleaver

Someday I’ll tell my grandkids that back in the day I drove a car (with an internal combustion engine no doubt) 40 minutes to an office building every Monday through Friday and worked in a cubicle all day. Maybe that already dates me, but it pretty much describes my early corporate career. I worked in public relations for a big tech company back when out-of-town editors would visit and it was our job to treat them to fancy lunches (and wine in the middle of the day). Discovering all the nice restaurants on an expense account in Phoenix and Scottsdale was definitely a perk of the PR job. Working for a large company also meant lots of coworkers’ birthdays to celebrate with team lunches. Cork 'N Cleaver was the default birthday restaurant in the 90s for my department. A group of us ladies always ordered the same thing: chicken salad that came with banana bread and a big piece of shareable mud pie with an uninhibited round of happy birthday.