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These are not your traditional Italian chocolate spice cookies made for the Christmas season, but make a great tradition nonetheless. Over the years this recipe has been adjusted many times and this year’s batch is the best one yet! These light and airy cookies are not too sweet and pack a concentrated dark chocolate flavor. The secret? Espresso.

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I recently caught up with Somerville artist C. Marlo Feinberg. From her website:

Marlo currently focuses on working in pen and ink, and oils. Her subjects capture her own personal life and her deep interests through her own eyes. Some of those are counterculture, dogs, music, architecture, history, movement, and the abstract.

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Linda Lerner’s Taking the F Train (NYQ Books, 2021) was chosen as a finalist in the 2022 Paterson Poetry Prize. How It Was (2020—2021) And Is (Iniquity Press/vendetta Books, 2023) is her most recent collection. Her poems have appeared in and are forthcoming from: Gargoyle, One Art, Big City Lit, Pinyon Review, Main Street Rag, The Raven’s Perch and Maintenant, among others.

Shop for the holidays while helping to fund medical care for cats and kittens awaiting adoption

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and Kitty Connection is ready to help you get ready. An all-volunteer non-profit dedicated to rescuing and finding safe, loving homes for local cats and dogs, Kitty Connection will hold a holiday-themed Online Auction from Friday, December 8 through Sunday, December 10. Auction proceeds will go toward the cost of pre-adoption medical procedures for cats and kittens.

Somerville Recreation is gearing up for its second Teen Spaces Holiday Tour, a multi-day event across five dedicated teen spaces with activities that are free and open to the Somerville community. Here’s the schedule:

Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan has announced the swearing in of the 2023 new class of Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs) formed by sixteen recently graduated lawyers. The class was sworn in on November 21, 2023. Amelia Ayer, Medfield MA; Christine Batista, Boston MA; Sarah Bramley-Garoutte, Quincy MA; Patrick Cespedes, Somerville MA; Andrew Dubsky, Brighton MA; Deyanira Gonzalez, Malden MA; Felicia Gordon, Medford MA; Cooper Hearn, Boston MA; Shana Kalatardi, Boston MA; Ian Kavanaugh, Boston MA; Tong Liu, Acton MA; Andrea Marcano, Boston MA; Sheehan McCarthy, Charlestown MA; Alyssa Mongroo, Cambridge MA; Meghan Pepin, Cambridge MA; and Kavya Verma, Northborough MA, were sworn in by District Attorney Ryan in Woburn.

Raynel Shepard is a renaissance woman: jazz vocalist, visual artist, educator and home chef. She was born in Chicago and grew up in Berkeley, California. She moved to the East Coast after two years of service in the Peace Corps in the Congo. She holds a doctorate from Harvard. Raynel comes from a family with deep roots in the Black Creole community of New Orleans. She performs Jazz and the American Songbook, as “Lady Ray”, with her trio of musicians at ROOTED Armory Café, other venues, and in New Orleans, where she winters.

The Confirmation of Appointments & Personnel Matters Committee meets for the Somerville Police Staffing Study Report presentation on Nov. 30, 2023.