My dad passed away a little over a month ago. He passed away on April 2, 2009, to be exact. Even though he was 84 years old and deteriorating fairly rapidly in his last few weeks, I still miss him keenly. Even though he had a good, long, and rich life (rich in terms of people who loved him and considered him to be an awesome enough dude), I still wish he could have lived forever and would never have left. Of course, this has nothing to do with food, but no doubt I will get around to food later in this post.
Nevertheless, I find I spend my days reminiscing about my dad and remembering all the good times we had. Lots of long-buried memories have been flooding back to me. Today, for instance, I remembered how my dad used to always give blood. He was pretty religious about it, too. I guess once every 6 months or so his office arranged with the Red Cross for employees to give blood and he was always there, giving his own. I've never given blood once in my life, but I think that the next time I see an ad for a blood drive, I'm going to go register and do it. It's about time and I'm going to do it for Bud.
I could go on indefinitely about my dad, but I guess I should narrow my memorial tribute to him down to the point of this blogspot, which is food. My dad was from Philadelphia, and that might account for a lot of his taste in foods. The most striking thing that I remember was that he loved rhubarb. Not just rhubarb pie, but rhubarb anything. He had fond memories of his mother fixing stewed rhubarb for dinner. I never had that, so I don't know how that would taste. But yeah, rhubarb pie was a hit for him. He also loved cream soda. Remember cream soda? I don't even know if they make that flavor anymore - but it was pretty popular back in the day. I think every now and then I see a random can or bottle somewhere of cream soda. Then there was the pretzels and ice cream combo. I don't know if that's a Philadelphia thing or not, but my grandfather (my dad's dad) turned me on to that one, and I have to say, it's awesome! Pretzels are even better with vanilla Soy Delicious, which by the way apparently has changed it's name to "So Delicious"! And being from Pennsylvania and being the grandson of a Mennonite woman as well, it's only logical that shoo fly pie would be another of his favorites. I used to try and make shoo fly pie when I was an adolescent but I never really appreciated molasses all that much, and that pie contains a good amount of molasses. But that pie was another of my dad's favorites.
When I reread this, I see that I have only really touched on his favorite desserts, but I might begin searching for something interesting to do with rhubarb that is not a dessert. This will be my next challenge. And hopefully I will take some pictures of it too. Stay tuned for further developments in the world of rhubarb!
3 comments:
Every time I see pictures of Granddad it makes me cry. I miss him so much, too, and I also wish he could have been around forever. I guess that's the problem with people, though, is that eventually they have to move on.
I think you can find cream soda pretty easily! I see it all the time. And pretzels with ice cream is delicious.
This is great, mom! You're a really good writer. Have you ever considered writing children's books? I think you'd be good at it, because you're really good at explaining things clearly but it's never dumbed down. Just a thought. It's something you could do as a hobby or whatnot when you retire in 50 years.
I miss Granddad. On Thursday I recorded the scratch track for his song, which is called "Your Silver Lining", and it was hard. My album is going to be dedicated to him and I think that song will be the title track.
Oops, guess what! Granddad was 85 years old, not 84! Grandmother is 84, and Granddad was going to be 86 in September. Boy, did I ever mess up big time! By the way, you two are awesome daughters, as is your sister, so all three of you are awesome; and you are awesome granddaughters too and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise!
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