Center of My Joy: Coconut Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Cookie for Richard Smallwood (half-dozen)
Center of My Joy: Coconut Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Cookie for Richard Smallwood (half-dozen)
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Center of My Joy: Coconut Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Cookie for Richard Smallwood (half-dozen)

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There is not really a way to overemphasize how significant Richard Smallwood was to Gospel music. If you are familiar with ANY music from the genre, you probably have heard a song that was birthed by Richard Smallwood. Whether you know I Love The Lord because Whitney Houston sang it for the soundtrack for "The Preacher's Wife" (the best selling gospel music album of all time) or you know Total Praise from (insert any major choir concert in the past 30 years) or you know Center of My Joy because your granny used to make you watch the Gaither Vocal Band, you are probably familiar with his MUSIC even if you don't know his NAME.

And there is no explaining how significant Richard Smallwood was to my genre of person.

The Maestro was the ultimate merger of the genres I was reared to love as a MUSICIAN. I played violin from age 4 through middle school. I have been in gospel choirs on and off since I was five. I have been in choral music societies on and off since I was 12.

Richard solidified my truth that one did not need to pick. One could live in all the worlds. One could have structure and whimsy. One could have intense study and improvisation. One could learn methodology championed as Eurocentric and invite it to submit to the musicology that had carried African Americans across an ocean, through sugar cane fields, up from slavery, and down highways as songs of victory and freedom.

Everything everywhere all at once. He passed away on December 20, 2025. I am grateful for his life. 

In Richard's honor, here is an all American cookie dough filled with remixed & refined nostalgia. Our chocolate chip base dough makes the perfect host for a filling of chopped hazelnut studded milk chocolate (gifted to us from a rescued food load by Columbus Food Rescue, a division local food justice organization Local Matters) melted with organic virgin coconut oil to create a fancy play on an almond joy filling. Fancy in a humble and welcoming host. 

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