FAMILY FEATURES
W
hether she’s your mom or a “like-a-mother” mentor, chances are you’ve got a lot to thank her for this
Mother’s Day. It’s a time for celebrating your biggest supporters, number one fans and best friends.
In life, we’re lucky to form relationships with women we can learn from and grow with. Beth Somers, Elizabeth
Nelson and Emily Tatak from the Wilton Test Kitchen consider themselves lucky.
Beth Somers, Director of Creative Content Development, owes her start to her former boss Milette Raz. Raz
is trained in the Wilton Method of Cake DecoratingTM and taught Somers how to decorate. But Somers thinks of
Raz as so much more — calling her a mentor, her second mother and her friend. Years after working together, the
duo teamed up for Cupcake Wars on the Food Network, returning home as champions of season six with winning
recipes like Tropical Getaway Cupcakes.
Elizabeth Nelson, Assistant Culinary Specialist, attributes her love of baking to her grandma Ann, learning
the basics with her and picking up passed down recipes that she brought with her to college. She looks up to her
mother, her grandmother and her great-grandmother, whom she’s told she also gets her competitive nature from.
Nelson and her grandmother went through a lot of trial and error together to come up with what they believe is the
perfect cinnamon roll recipe, very similar to this recipe for Cinnamon Rolls with Caramel Glaze.
For Emily Tatak, preserving family recipes and continuing the traditions around the holidays and in the kitchen
led to her career at Wilton as an Assistant Culinary Specialist. She owes her inspiration to her mom,
who taught her how to bake. Together they iced cakes, decorated sugar cookies and even made a gingerbread house
from scratch. Keeping with tradition, celebrating the holidays without grandma Irene’s Kolachy recipe
just wouldn’t be the same.
For more recipe ideas to honor your mother or special mentor, such as Tropical Getaway Cupcakes, visit s.wilton.
com/MentorKnowsBest.
26 West Virginia Farm Bureau News