bupkis

December 13, 2024 3:23 AM

Terry Carmen has been diagnosed with incurable brain cancer. Before he goes, he wants to share his favourite recipes with the world. You can find Terry's recipes on his website, as well as some thoughts about life and photos of his pets. Add the recipes to your bookmarks and, as Terry says: "Go home make yummy food and have your friends and family over. Actual happy memories are all that matters, money, power, status, everything else is mostly all nonsense."
posted by fight or flight (7 comments total)

I’m glad you shared this!
posted by Vatnesine at 5:47 AM on December 13, 2024 [1 favorite]

Fuck cancer in general and fuck brain cancer specificly. I have lost 3 colleagues in their 30s and 40’s to brain cancer, My wife’s best friend never really knew her bio-dad beacuse he died when she was 2. Hope these recipes can live on
posted by CostcoCultist at 6:52 AM on December 13, 2024

Attended the burial on Dec 7 of a dear friend who died in his early 60s of glioblastoma. 'Fuck brain cancer,' is right.

Thanks for sharing these recipes; I've bookmarked it and plan to work through some. Terry is doing it right. It takes me back to a simpler time on the web when people did things because they were passionate about them and not for imaginary internet points but because they were an influencer sponsored by SPANX or Eli Lilly.
posted by robot_jesus at 9:54 AM on December 13, 2024 [1 favorite]

I identify strongly with the idea of being remembered through food. I have been taking a similar route and putting all my favorite recipes in digital form so my family has them in the event that I suffer a brain or other major trauma, and notably many of Terry's items are also on my list, albeit different recipes for those things (e.g. my version of guacamole). I'm going to try a bunch of Terry's though.

I wonder if it is a general human trait to be wired in a way that associates good memories with meals and food; I certainly am wired that way. As a case in point, evidently nobody liked my grandmother's fruitcake except me, but I make it almost every holiday season because it makes me think of her. I'm sure the same will happen for Terry's friends and family.
posted by tempestuoso at 10:48 AM on December 13, 2024

That site looks wonderful; can’t wait to try some of those recipes! But it is indeed tragic that Mr. Carmen is sharing them in anticipation of his death. As for glioblastoma, it struck my wife’s stepmother some years ago (before we were a couple). She was a much-loved member of both the community and my wife’s family and when the neurosurgeon came out after the biopsy and told my father in law (a pediatrician) “it’s a glio”, the first words out of his mouth were “Oh fuck!” That was the first time in her 50 or so years that my wife ever heard her father drop an f bomb.
posted by TedW at 11:23 AM on December 13, 2024

I wonder if it is a general human trait to be wired in a way that associates good memories with meals and food

Given how much human culture has revolved around meals and meal time and guest rights and rituals - I'd suspect it would be far less common to not associate good memories with the breaking of bread.
posted by drewbage1847 at 1:52 PM on December 13, 2024 [1 favorite]

Actual happy memories are all that matters, money, power, status, everything else is mostly all nonsense.

I am 65, and can confirm.
posted by jokeefe at 2:07 PM on December 13, 2024 [1 favorite]