I was wondering if I can celebrate Barry’s 86th birthday today without his physical presence and I decided that I certainly can because he really is always present in my life. I can celebrate all that was amazing and wonderful about him. All that he truly sparkled with. Yes, sparkled. I know it might sound odd but he had a forever twinkle that could bring a smile to my face no matter how awful I might be feeling. Yes, happy birthday. I miss you more than I can ever express and love you every minute of my life
Walk of Honor SUNY New Paltz
Barry was the first person I had ever met who ate tofu. He cut it up, added chopped onions, herbs and spices to give it some color and flavor and cooked it in a frying pan with a little olive oil. It was delicious. And I'm not just saying that because I love Barry.
When Barry was growing up in Dixon he was able to come home every day for lunch. The group of boys he walked to school with in the morning all walked home together for lunch. He told me his mom made great Chef Boyardee. That's probably why he couldn't twirl spaghetti on a fork. Or maybe it was just being left handed that made twirling difficult. But I digress. Back to the kitchen...despite his early experience with canned pasta, Barry became a good cook.
One of Barry's favorite appliances was his bread machine. There was an entire winter he made bread nearly every day. That's a lot of bread! And though it was great to have fresh bread I was happy when spring came and this "phase" ended. The bread machine was taken off the counter and put in a cupboard underneath. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. And Bread Alone was so much easier! And of course raisin pumpernickel from Cohen's. He never returned to bread making, but always wanted the bread machine to be there in the kitchen just in case.
His next "phase" was juicing. He bought a super juicer and juiced every fruit and vegetable possible. Some of these mixtures were great though I didn't care much for how they looked. Especially when he added wheat germ and put them in the blender and they would separate into very unappetizing layers in the refrigerator. The mess left from juicing was awful. Carrot juice was the messiest but not as difficult to clean up as the beets.
The beets were part of the very best of Barry's cooking. He started making wonderful soups in his crock pot. I had added a food processor to the kitchen. He used it to chop, grate and slice the ingredients to the most delicious soups. The three best were carrot soup with raisins and cashews, lentil soup, and borscht (my absolute favorite). He had tried to find a good recipe for his favorite Chinese soup, Hot and Sour, but had to be content with having it at a Chinese restaurant in Walden. At first, he grated the beets for his borscht but after awhile he started chopping chunks of beets and potatoes leaving the skins on. He saved glass coffee jars and filled them with borscht and refrigerated them for a whole week of dinners. I added sour cream to mine. He usually used yogurt but sometimes the sour cream was too tempting even for him.
Even though he often kept raw chicken out all day and sometimes ate things that were well past their expiration dates, he often shopped at health food stores and farms. Our road trips took us to many farm stores and farmers' markets throughout the Hudson Valley. One of the best was the Hawthorne Valley Farm. If we went east of the Hudson we usually came back through Ghent and would stop there for soup and a little shopping. They had a convenient restroom and a gift shop. Barry would kid me mercilessly about gift shops wherever we went.
Barry knew all about complete proteins, root vegetables and the foods we should eat and enjoyed sharing that knowledge. When I was pregnant he made me promise not to drink Pepsi or Coke. I stopped drinking soda and haven't had any in almost 25 years. I wish I remembered more. I'm not ready to revisit many of the places we went but I'm hoping that in time I will visit them. And I'm hoping that eventually I will be able to use his cookbooks and revisit his cooking.
