A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Complete list of Links for Memorial posts for Sher (so far):

Thank you to everyone who has posted about their love for and friendships with Sher.  As a friend of hers from California emailed me-- "I've washed my desk with tears I've cried while reading all the posts but it's been a beautiful cry." 

(I'm so sorry for the weird links in the first part. There is so much html code in this post that I've basically blown brain cells in Typepad's server. Just keep clicking on the lines and it will still take you there! Also, because I'm having so much trouble adding in any more html, I'm having trouble adding anymore links so let's do this. Any other links coming in will be put in the comment so be sure to check out the comments for additional postings, okay? Thank, Everyone!)

                                

updates from 7/29 8am

Bunny -- http://wwwbunnysovencom.blogspot.com/2008/07/in-memory-of-sherry-cermak.html

Mary (Breadchick) -- http://breadchick.com/?p=467

Weekend Cat Blogging Hosted by Paulchens on her food blog

(

http://foodblog.paulchens.org/?p=1204

):

Jelly Pizza:

http://jellypizza.blogspot.com/2008/07/farewell-dear-friend.html

Kitikata-San's Blog:

http://kitikata.blogspot.com/2008/07/cats-weep-this-week-wcb.html

Kate at icanhaspnutbutr:

http://icanhaspnutbutr.com/2008/07/26/wcb-in-honor-of-sher/

Jenny at Foray Into Food

http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/2008/07/weekend-cat-blogging-helping-us-pick.html

Amar at Cat Synth:

http://www.ptank.com/catsynth/index.php?entry=entry080726-095538

boo_licious at Masak-Masak:

http://masak-masak.blogspot.com/2008/07/wcb-164-in-honor-of-sher.html

Mary at Shazam in the Kitchen:

http://shazaminthekitchen.blogspot.com/2008/07/goodbye-sher-hunka-burning-love.html

Elle at Feeding My Enthusiasms:

http://feedingmyenthusiasms.blogspot.com/2008/07/loves-meatballs.html

Jacqueline Leung at Toxo Bread

http://toxobread.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/hearty-spinach-and-feta-cheese-bread/

Judy at Judy Gross Eats: Judy's Gross Eats

http://wandasue22.blogspot.com/2008/07/for-sher-meatless-tamale-pie.html

Katie B. at Other Peoples Food:

http://otherpeoplesfood.blogspot.com/2008/07/shers-scallion-chicken-noodles.html

 

<

http://livinginthekitchenwithpuppies.blogspot.com/2008/07/for-sher-what-did-you-eat.html

>

Natashya at Living in the kitchen with Puppies:

http://livinginthekitchenwithpuppies.blogspot.com/2008/07/for-sher-what-did-you-eat.html

Genie at The Inadvertent Gardener:

http://inadvertentgardener.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/farewell-to-sher/

Deborah at Taste and Tell:

http://workingwomanfood.blogspot.com/2008/07/meatballs-for-sher.html

<

http://workingwomanfood.blogspot.com

> at All Things Edible:

Jenny

http://allthingsedible.blogspot.com/2008/07/tribute-through-food-for-sher.html

Michelle at Culinography

http://culinography.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/a-tribute-to-friends/

Sue -- http://wanderingchopsticks.blogspot.com/2008/07/southern-baked-beans-and-tribute-to.html

Zorra -- http://kochtopf.twoday.net/stories/5091512/

Links from the previous post from Sunday and Monday:

The Comforts of Sher's Home: File' Gumbo & Sharp Cheddar Mac & Cheese

This post and all the links contained in it are dedicated to Sherry Cermak, author of the What Did You Eat blog who died of a sudden heart attack a week ago today.  Sher was my friend, my confidante, and my personal cheerleader for the last decade.  I loved her, I miss her, and I cherish every memory of the friendship we shared.  I am a better person for having had the good fortune of having her in my life and I will always be grateful to Heavenly Father for allowing our paths to cross.  The fact that we met on a Robert Redford fan site is the ultimate proof that God does, indeed, have a sense of humor as twisted and perverse as our own.

All over the food blogging community today, you will find Sher's friends cooking her recipes in her honor as our way to say "Good bye and We love you, Sherry."

Personally, I couldn't decide which one dish to make from Sher's blog to honor her by so I picked the two dishes we probably talked about the most over the years.  The first is Sher's family's File'  Gumbo.  I love this dish not only for it's deeply comforting taste but for the stories Sher would tell about it and how hilariously offended she would get when her family's file gumbo was confused with regular gumbo.  She told me many times, proudly, that her family's gumbo was a thing of purity and should be touched by no Andouille, no chicken, and certainly no okra, not that they had anything against okra per se, it just didn't belong in their gumbo pot. According to Sher who was passionate on this subject, to say the least, it was actually close to heresy to even mention the words "okra", "sausage", and/or "chicken" in the same breath with Gumbo.  Shrimp and crab only, please.

As for the second dish, if you asked Sherry her favorite food she would say "Cheese", or at least that's what she always told me.  Her all time favorite was Cowgirl Creamery's Triple Cream.  She said it was heavenly.  I keep intending to mail order some but haven't gotten around to it yet.  When I do, you'll be the first to hear about it.

Sher's mac & cheese dish from Martha Stewart has no Triple Cream Cowgirl Creamery cheese in it but it was damn good anyway.  Sher and I used to laugh about how we both loved mac & cheese so much even the Kraft blue box was a treat now and then.  Yeah, except the blue box has no actual cheese in it, ahem. But it's the taste of childhood so it's still worth a splurge now and then.

The tomatoes in this recipe are a wonderful addition, roasted with thyme for summery herbiness.  When I first saw this on her blog, I thought "Tomatoes????"  But they really are necessary for the full effect.  No wonder Sherry was drawn to this recipe.  I have a feeling her love for fresh tomato, home-made bread, and real mayo sandwiches from the first sun-warmed tomatoes from her back yard were legendary to more folks than just me.

Goodbye My Friend Sher

Sher of What Did You Eat? passed away Sunday morning of a sudden heart attack.  I don't know how to begin to memorialize her or even wrap my brain around the idea that she won't be in my life anymore.  Sherry and I have emailed or left texts for each other almost every day for over eight years.  We shared the glories and the minutia of our lives, everything from our our deepest joys and sorrows to the every day frustrations of being married, being overweight, living in our own heads, my work in the hospital, her work with the animal rehab center, what books we were reading, what movies we saw, and what a crack whore Paris Hilton looks like most of the time (one of our favorite topics, actually).  Even when I got busy with school or lately would get busy with work and be off the computer for a few days I'd always come back to a string of emails from Sherry, some serious, some light, some jokes, and some questions pondering the universe that only Sherry would think of and only I would not see as weird things to talk about.

In the hours since talking to her husband, Bob, I have stopped myself at least a dozen times from leaving off what I was doing in the moment to go to the computer to email my friend Sherry about how crappy I feel about my friend Sherry dying.  That's how big a part of my life she was.

Doctor's Kitchen Monday: The Mediterranean Diet

"One of these things is not like the others...." in that you've already seen it:  the yogurt-creamed gazpacho.  The night Lynn and James came over for dinner was an all-out Mediterranean Diet pleasure and one of the first days in a long time that I actually did get all 8 of my fruit/vegetable servings (with one to spare!) in for that day and all 8 glasses of water we're supposed to get each day.

The water count is fine. I can deal with that.  But the veggie's and fruit servings are, let's be honest, more difficult in our society.  I've been diet diary-ing for a lot of years and there are lots of days when Gene and I only get one or two servings max.  Think about it.  Say you have eggs and toast for breakfast, a hamburger (or other fast food sandwich), fries, and soda at work (which is certainly not unheard of), and then you come home tired, not wanting to cook and have a piece of chicken with some potatoes or rice, maybe some bread, and some quickly heated up corn, peas, or green beans. What's that leave you with?  A barely edible canned veggie at dinner and the ass-berg lettuce and anemic tomato on your burger. That's really not enough vegetables, and taking a multi-vitamin, the panacea of our generation, doesn't cut it either. It's better than nothing but not much unless you're taking pharmaceutical-grade supplements.  You just don't know what you're getting and the body processes them better when they come out of real food.

Happy Fourth of July! Hummingbird Cake

This is a very moist, dense, rich cake from "Close Up on Cakes" by Allert, Birchell, Mappin, Port, and Smith.  The book is no longer in print but can be picked up used from Amazon.com.  This cake is very much in the same texture league and style with a good carrot cake, also taking on a rich cream cheese frosting, or very reminiscent of a cake I created last year, a pear, walnut, and cardamom cake, along with hand-piped chocolate decorations. 

Actually, now that I think about it, I think a handful of walnuts would be excellent in this.  The thing that drew me to it was that as I've been trying to up mine and Gene's fruit and veggie counts every day but needed a dessert for a night when friends Lynn and James were coming over, I was intrigued by both the name and the fact that this cake contains about 4 cups of fruit.  That's, again, on the par with a good apple cake or carrot cake, although this one uses bananas, mangoes, and pineapple.  I threw in a few strawberries just because I happened to have them.  The other interesting thing about this cake is that the only spice is cardamom which I love. I was a little nervous that it wouldn't be enough but with a generous tablespoon, that was all the spice it needed to compliment the fruit.

A Twist on Gazpacho

I've been working on increasing our veggie intake, specifically looking for first course options other than salads.  Not that I have anything against salads but, I confess, I get bored with them and with it being summer, hot soup doesn't thrill me at the moment.  When Lynn and James came over for dinner the other night I decided at the last minute to whip together some yogurt creamed chilled gazpacho and see how that went over at my house. Pretty well so we'll be doing it again.