Daddy was everything to us. He was a lot to many and my mother's
whole world. He moved from Los Angeles to a small southern town in
Georgia when he was 16 years old and met my mother shortly after. Mom
was 15 and the rest is history. He left us, very unexpectedly on an
early Spring night. Nothing could have prepared me for it. He was the
pied piper, the epitome of a fine man, the definition of love, all the
reason I turned out to be me. He was kind and gentle, inspired me every
day to see the good in people. He inspired the adventure in me. It's
why I grew up in a small southern town on a cotton and pecan farm and
have seen so much of the world that most folks will never see.
I always packed a cooler on my way home to the farm and took Daddy things he just couldn't grow on the farm. Italian prosciutto, spicy tuna roles from my favorite sushi place, homemade fennel sausage lasagna from Bacchanalia (one of two, 5 star Michelin restaurants in Atlanta.) He liked tiny blueberries from Vermont from Whole Foods to put on his Raisin Bran every morning. And the late summer 'wild king salmon' I got at the fish market. I brought him Peach Bread from Breadwinners Bakery. The finest olive oil and balsamic vinegar from Italy. I always brought him several boxes of Lily O'Brien's sticky toffee chocolates from Ireland along with a loaf of local soda bread. He loved the whole cranberry sauce Amy turned me on to from the LA Farmer's Market.
Cherries are especially prolific in the Pacific Northwest. Just about every variety you can think of are currently available at the markets and farm stands. They are hard to pass up since they are so juicy and sweet. 
The Help surprised some people that Southern whites could
treat their servants with so much inhumanity in the 1960's. I was
shocked by a few specific incidents, but not surprised. I saw it close
up as a child. Not in Jackson, Miss., where the story is set, but in my
hometown of Beverly Hills where the help was almost exclusively
'negro,' before the Black Power Movement and the influx of Hispanic
housekeepers and nannies in the late 70's and early 80's.
The guy to the right of me, wearing a stained #13 Alex Rodriguez jersey, grabbed his glove and screamed “Here it comes! Here it comes!”
I have an image of my father wearing a blue and white canvas pin-stripe apron over his clothes that my mother gave him (with good reason), standing over the barbecue in our backyard alternately spraying charcoal fluid (with big effect) on the briquettes and a few moments later spraying, using his thumb as a spray cap, a large bottle of Canada Dry Soda Water filled (and refilled) with water from the hose onto the resulting flames from the barbecue that were threatening to ruin his perfect barbecued ribs. They were perfect which is sort of surprising since my father couldn’t really cook at all. Scrambled eggs and burnt bacon is about all I remember from his repertoire except for the night he exploded a can of baked beans since he’d decided it was okay to heat them in the can (unopened) which he’d placed in a large pot of boiling water and, I think, forgotten about them. Tip: don’t try that at home.