I wasn't done talking to him yet.

     This past weekend I started to look into buying new golf clubs.  Initially I would have called Mark and gotten the low down, instead I emailed Nate and Mikey to see what their thoughts were.  It wasn't my first choice, but it would have to do.

     Sunday I had this terrific idea, (because it is nearing the time for me to return to work) to bake some pies.  I have a new double oven, I could go crazy, why not?   I have realized lately that my blogs have pretty much been about Mark and "The Journey" but I really do love to cook!  I continued on my research for recipes for big pies, little pies, pies in jars, pies on a stick maybe, all flavors, hopefully some that are better for you than others, but pies none the less.  I found myself wanting to talk to Mark about this as well, but instead I got out his cookbook.  You see, when he passed away all I really wanted was his cookbook and I had glanced thru it a few times, enough to notice that it always falls open to the pages about Thanksgiving turkey, but I really wanted to read it now.   This turned out to be mostly a bad idea.  I came across recipes in his hand writing, pages he had marked that I wondered - did he make this soup, or was he going to make this soup?  There were grocery lists, and measurements and just papers with random words, there were pages from magazines and newspaper clippings from the Sunday morning Oregonian of things he must have liked and saved in the book.  I could imagine him sitting reading the paper on Sunday morning, talking to himself about the state of affairs the world was in, and then savorying the food section, we were very much alike in that respect, and we always saved it until last - "read the doom and gloom" he would say, "and then get down to the meat and potatoes".   He was funny like that.   I wished we had talked more about recipes, we spoke almost every day, but I find myself more often than not, whispering to myself during these days, "I wasn't done talking to you yet".

    The book is my cherished posession from my brother, it tells many tales, we spoke about it often and the things he cooked for the kids are in there, little tid bits of knowledge about cooking and the world can be found between the pages, but it ALWAYS makes me cry.   This too shall pass I continue to tell myself.  Not the memories or the sneaky smiles or words of wisdom that I can hear in my head in that big red cookbook,  but the crying - you see as Mark would say "we are ugly cryers",  my answer to that would be,  I don't care how ugly I am when I cry - at least I can cook!

     So, there were no pies that day and I am still on the quest for new golf clubs - but I made a killer artichoke dip and we all thanked Marky boy for it!