Sunday is Father’s Day, and as I noted in an earlier column, this will be the first Father’s Day of my life without my Dad present in this world. It will be very strange not to go see him, or even be able to call to wish him a Happy Father’s Day.

He was 100 and seven months old; very frail and so very, very tired of hanging on, so it could only come as a relief to those of us who loved him so much to see him finally let go, shortly before noon, one month ago. But, the world is a much emptier place, now.

Through our decades together, I learned so many things from my father, some trivial, others huge.

Today, in his memory, as I think back over our years together, I’d like to tell you just a bit of what I learned from my Dad. These are not the huge ones, which would take so much more space, but some of the small things I’ll never do again without thinking of him.

I learned:

How delicious a bowl of simple graveyard stew tastes when you’re eating it at 12:30 a.m. in your pajamas in the kitchen with your Dad (it was his preferred “supper” when he got home from the 4-12 shift at the pulp mill);

How to slide my feet over the mud flats searching diligently for geoduck necks sticking up from the sand, and how to hang upside- down in the geoduck hole until

I finally dislodge the beast and pull him out; followed by how to clean a geoduck;

How to rake for candlefish, followed by how to thread a candlefish on the hook to catch a salmon, followed by how to gut and clean a fish on the spot;

How to ride for 12 hours in a small boat, dragging a line through the water, and go home in the evening fishless but happy for having such a good day on the water, hoping to do it again next weekend;

How to tread carefully through the seaweed in the shallow waters of a low tide and net the scuttling crabs lurking there, followed by how to cook crabs in a big pot on the beach along with the steamer clams we dug the day before, followed by a “Tide’s out, table’s set” feast, with a big mug of clam nectar on the side;

How to clean anything I catch, from fish to fowl (“you catch it, you clean it”), followed by how to pluck a duck (or goose) and do the smelly dip that eliminates pin feathers;

How to sit on the beach and shuck oysters, slurping them from the shell with just a drop or two of Tabasco on top;

How to drink Scotch straight up or on the rocks with a water back, “So no one can slip you too much in a frou-frou drink and you’ll always know exactly how much booze you’re taking in and when to stop doing it,” was pretty much what he said to me, which was accompanied (when I went off to college) by a stern lecture on “If you can’t handle your liquor, you’re a fool to drink it, so learn quickly or leave it alone”;

How to quit whining about something that’s gone wrong, figure out what the problem is and get busy working on a way to fix it;

How to save money, and why I would need to;

And so much more, but we don’t have enough space.

There is one other thing, however, that I learned from Dad that I’d like to mention here, because it’s one of the really important things he taught me.

How to love. For the 77 years of their marriage, and even after she died, I watched my dad love my mother more than any other thing in his life; and for all of my years,

I felt him love me, as well. I still do.

RECIPES

Dad was a meat-and-potatoes man who loved food and never, until his final days, refused a meal. Old-fashioned pot roast with lots of vegetables was one of his top favorites. During my younger years, this was always made with venison, plentiful and available because all the men were hunters, while beef had to be purchased with money, a scarce commodity.

OLD FASHIONED POT ROAST

1 venison shoulder roast,

3-4 lbs., or substitute beef chuck roast, boneless or 7-blade

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 T. vegetable oil

1 med. onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 celery rib, chopped

2-4 (or more) garlic cloves, minced

2 t. sugar

1 cup chicken broth (yes, use canned low-sodium, if you wish)

1 cup beef broth (same as above)

1 sprig fresh thyme

1-2 bay leaves

1-2 cups water, as needed (see instructions)

½ cup dry red wine

Pat roast dry with paper towels. (When we were using venison, my mother often larded the roast with bits of bacon because venison is very lean and can be dry if it isn’t given a boost with a bit of fat.) Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper on all sides.

Heat oil in a large, heavy Dutch oven over med.-high heat and brown the roast thoroughly on all sides, reducing the heat if the oil begins to smoke. Transfer roast to a large plate and set aside.

Reduce heat in pan to med; add onion, carrot and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are just beginning to brown, 6-8 min. Add garlic and sugar and cook just until fragrant, about ½ min. Add both broths, thyme and bay leaf, stir with a wooden spoon to scrape browned bits from bottom of the pan.

Return roast and any accumulated juices to the pot; add enough water to come halfway up the sides of the roast. Bring to a simmer over med. heat, then cover tightly with lid (if lid doesn’t fit tightly, place a piece of foil over the pot then put on the lid.) Transfer pot to the middle of a preheated 300-degree oven and cook, turning the roast a time or two during cooking, until the meat is fully fork tender, about 3½ to 4 hrs.

Transfer roast to a carving board and tent with foil to keep warm. Let the pot liquid settle for a few minutes, then skim off surface fat with a wide spoon and discard thyme and bay leaf. Boil liquid over high heat until reduced to about 1 to 1½ cups. Add red wine and reduce again for about 2 min. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cut meat into slices about ½-inch thick, transfer to a warmed serving platter and pour about ½ cup of the sauce over the meat. Pass remaining sauce separately.

If you are going to add vegetables to the pot roast to cook, add thickly-sliced carrots, small red potatoes (cut in half), thickly-sliced parsnips, quartered turnips, in any desired combination, about ½ hr. before you anticipate the roast will be done. Submerge the vegetables in the liquid and cook until almost tender (about 20 min.), then continue instruction 5, transferring vegetables to the warmed platter around the meat.

As I said, there was almost always venison on hand, and both my mom and grandmother made it dozens of different ways. Dad frequently requested cabbage rolls, a dish very popular a few decades ago when people were looking for ways to stretch a food dollar. These just might be making a revival in our kitchens now, with ground beef and/or pork instead of venison.

CABBAGE ROLLS

8 large cabbage leaves

1 lb. ground venison (or beef or pork or combination of both)

1 med. onion, chopped

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1 t. salt

1/4 t. ground nutmeg

1 can (15 oz.) tomato sauce, divided (see instructions)

2 cups cooked rice of choice

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

In a large pot of boiling water, cook cabbage leaves for 3 min.; drain, set aside.

In a skillet over med. heat, cook venison, onion, garlic, salt and nutmeg until the meat is no longer pink; drain. Stir in 1 cup of the tomato sauce.

Place 1/3 cup of the meat mixture on each cabbage leaf; fold in sides and, starting at an unfolded edge, roll up completely to enclose filling.

Put rice in a large skillet; add remaining tomato sauce. Add cabbage rolls, cover and simmer for 20 min. Sprinkle with cheese and heat until cheese begins to melt; transfer to a warmed serving platter and serve immediately. Serves 4.

Remember tapioca pudding? Along with that bowl of graveyard stew, a dish of tapioca pudding resides among my earliest memories. I still love it, but when my kids were small, I found a recipe for butterscotch tapioca and that was it for me. It’s still a fantastic dessert in my estimation.

BUTTERSCOTCH TAPIOCA PUDDING

3 T. quick-cooking tapioca

1/4 t. kosher salt

2 beaten eggs

2 cups milk

½ t. vanilla

3 T. unsalted butter

2/3 cup dark brown sugar

Garnishes of choice

Combine tapioca, salt, eggs and milk in the top of a double boiler. Cook over boiling water without stirring for 7 min., then stir well and cook for 5 min. more. Remove from over the steam and allow thicken. Fold in vanilla.

Melt the butter in a small skillet; add the brown sugar and stir to combine and allow sugar to melt into the butter. Stir this into the cooked tapioca. Divide pudding among 4 serving dishes and cover with plastic wrap, pressing it onto the surface of the pudding to prevent a “skin” from forming. Chill until ready to serve. Garnish with crushed toffee bars (Heath Bar), or chopped nuts, or whipped cream, or crushed ginger snaps, or a drizzle of warmed butterscotch sauce, or whatever you like.

(I have to admit that I often ate mine warm as soon as it came out of the pot, with a bit of ice cream melting over it.)