One of the nicest things about participating in blogs -- as either an author or a follower -- is the opportunity to make friendships with people far away. One of these people was Lisa Quintana, aka Michigoose, who had a couple of blogs that I read regularly (here and here), and who read my blogs regularly. Both of us were avid commenters, developing dialogs as we read and responded to each other's posts. Although I only met her once in person, I counted her as a real friend.
When Lisa died last month from breast cancer, there was an outpouring of love and fond memories on some email lists that she had also participated in, and some people from her local quilt guild organized a project in which friends would each make a 3x5 artist trading card to give to Lisa's husband and daughter.
I decided to focus on food, because Lisa was one of my earliest followers after I started this blog, and she frequently chimed in with anecdotes and ideas about the foods I wrote about. She agreed with me that strawberry shortcake is best on a biscuit (not cake), that people shouldn't strip the husks off corn in the grocery store, that sauerkraut and potatoes are natural born partners, that Havarti cheese is good melted over all kinds of other food. We agreed that our mothers were geniuses at making frugal food and tricking us into thinking it was a delicacy, that the food industry is too casual about mad cow disease, and that a box of dates from California is a wonderful present.
We agreed that great northern beans are great in every sense of the world (we were both born in Michigan, great northern bean capital of the world) and we both loved chicken salad, apples, fruitcake and mincemeat pie (but not all together).
I have been making daily collages all this year using 3x5 library card catalog cards, so it seemed natural to make one for Lisa's family.
Rest in peace, good friend. I understand the food is really good in heaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment