Preparing for a dinner party can be stressful. You have developed your menu, planned all the detail, but you are afraid that in the heat of the final moments, you will forget something. Writing yourself some notes is a great way to minimize the stress and reduce the chances of something being left behind.

They say that apples don’t fall far from trees. My daughter Jenn has seen her father prepare for many a dinner party and place a few strategic notes around the kitchen. Lo and behold, she did the same thing when she was preparing her first Thanksgiving dinner for her new in-laws. They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, not only did Jenn replicate her father’s traditional Thanksgiving menu, she used his note trick to manage the stress. In hindsight I wonder if she followed the family tradition of forgetting the cranberry sauce?

Jenn’s Uncle John has been an important player in her life. He was her first babysitter in California. He served Jenn her first beer before she was a year old (pictured below). Most importantly, Uncle John schooled a young Jenn from Memphis on the ways of the big city when she first moved to New York. I’ll never forget Uncle John treating a twenty something Jenn to a makeover at Saks Fifth Avenue in the city and proudly announcing to the make-up artist and crowd of 10 tourists, that changing baby Jennifer’s poopy diaper was his first and last. You can’t buy memories like that one.

(Uncle John Nangle serving baby Jennifer her first beer. If we only knew…)

Jenn’s husband Ethan also had his Uncle John who was very important to Ethan and his brother Bret growing up in New York. Their Uncle John who taught them many things, left his rent controlled apartment to Bret when he retired several years back. Uncle John passed away recently and Bret wrote a touching tribute to his Uncle John:

When Uncle John retired and moved upstate, I lived in his apartment. And as much as I tried to make it mine, I never could; his presence there was too strong. Especially in his tiny kitchen, where, inside the cabinets, he’d taped valuable cooking lessons and recipes. I could never bring myself to take them down until I moved out. He was such a great cook, and I was too intimidated to ever try to make anything that he had. But there were about a half dozen warnings up in those cabinets never to use dish soap on the coffee filter, and I consider having lived that commandment my greatest personal tribute to him.

(A few of Uncle John Cahill’s kitchen notes)

Notes, and Uncle Johns have been a very important gifts. to both the Kenny and Begun Family.

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