dad, ellie's kidney and rachael ray

I've been trying for months to blog about my dad.  I haven't managed it to date.  It's just been too hard.  When will it ever be less hard? 

But today I vowed to try again, because I dreamed about Dad the other night.  I woke up with his voice in my head, and it was just so nice to hear him again.  It's been almost five years since I've  called and heard that warm, smiling voice exclaim, "Janie girl!"

As those of you who knew my dad know, my sisters and I won the dad lottery.  My dad was an insanely capable guy.  He was a surgeon, an old school doc who loved what he did with a passion.  He was an amazing dad and husband.  And a kick ass handyman and woodworker.  And warm, and funny, and smart, and respected, and silly and he loved life.  He was the bomb diggity and I miss him. every. single. day.  But I digress.

Seven years before his unexpected and untimely death, my dad underwent a kidney transplant.  My sister Ellie was his donor.  Dad had been in kidney failure for a couple years and had gotten so, well, old in those years.  He slept a lot. He was spacey.  His energy level, which had always been reliable (albeit with an enviable power nap habit), was flagging.  We all sort of thought that's what Dad was going to be like from there on out and, after a couple serious health scares in that period, we were just glad to still have him.  Then he got Ellie's 39 year old kidney transplanted into him and what transpired thereafter was miraculous.  We got him back.  (Here:  you can read about it in Ellie's blog.  It's an amazing story.)   The recovery was slow and frustrating, but little by little, day by day he recovered to not only his pre-transplant level but he recovered to his regular Dad level.  He was BACK, baby!

For that first month of recovery, dad watched a lot of tv.  And he got hooked on cooking shows.  And he fell a little bit in love.  With Rachael Ray.  My dad had never really cooked.  He was a great grill man. Briefly, in the 70's, when woks became a thing, he decided he would be a wok man, too.  Once a month or so he would make the infamous "east west stir fry", taking over the entire kitchen and chopping and measuring every item with a surgeon's precision.  But that was short lived, and the cooking fell almost entirely to mom.  Until that post-transplant summer of 2003 when dad, laid up on his easy chair day after day,  discovered Rachael Ray and decided to give cooking a try.
I think the precision and the science and the immediate gratification of cooking really appealed to him.  So when he got back on his feet they took him right to the kitchen, and to the market, and for those next 7 years, while he was retired and my mom was still working as a nurse at Bedford Middle School, their roles were reversed and it was she who would come home to the world's most adorable cook, waiting with a drink and a hug and a meal at the end of her work day. 

For Christmas that year, Dad gave us all a cookbook written by his muse:  

 I don't consult Rachael nearly as often as I do Ina, but there are a few recipes from the above in solid rotation.  Like this one; you can tell from all the debris on the page.

Supreme Pizza Pasta Salad.  It's a winner.

  Cook up a box of wagon wheels pasta.

Chop up 2 tomatoes, 1/2 red onion, 1 bell peper (recipe calls for green but I only had red and it's fine) and some mushrooms if you have them.

 Chop up a pound of fresh mozzarella and a stick of pepperoni.

 Tear or chop about 20 large basil leaves

 Mix it all together. 

 Make a dressing of 1 tsp garlic salt & dried oregano

1 tablespoon tomato paste (I usually use 2)

2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

about 1/3 cup olive oil

lots of pepper

 Add it in, stir it up.  If you can, let it sit a bit to absorb the flavors. 

 and voila!  Thank you Rachael for the inspiration.  Thank you Ellie for 7 extra wonderful years.

 And thank you Dad. For everything.