Sadly, two weeks ago one of Nate’s closest family friends, Henny Ray Abrams, passed away unexpectedly at the young age of 58. In the years of knowing Nate, I had gotten to know Henny pretty well.

He had, as an adult, learned to cook and had taken to inviting us over to dinner parties in his brooklyn apartment fairly regularly. He always served us a delicious 3 course meal including freshly baked french bread. He and I often talked about cooking, comparing knowledge and recipes. So it was only appropriate that when we got married, Henny’s gift to us was the pasta maker attachment for my kitchenaid mixer. I decided to pull it out this weekend, in honor of Henny, who I know would have been excited to hear that it got put to use.

Because Nate knew Henny much better than me, I thought that I would invite him to take over before I share the pasta recipe, telling us a little more about the man that he came to know so well:

I first want to thank Amy for allowing me to write this post since there is never a good way to deal with a subject like this. Last week a very close, way too young, family friend passed away suddenly.  His name was Henny and he was basically like an uncle to me.

Nate peering into Henny’s Camera….backwards

Henny was a well-known and respected photographer, working in news, sports, entertainment, but mainly he worked in motorcycle racing as a photographer and reporter.  When I got a go-cart for one christmas he supplied our helmets with some of his old motorcycle helmets. To say they looked ridiculous on us would be an understatement, but they did the job.

Christmas is the time of year that I most often associate with Henny, which is odd considering he was Jewish. But, until I was out of college every year we would all gather a couple of weeks before Christmas and do our annual Christmas picture. When we were younger these seemed like interminable exercises, with what seemed like hundreds of pictures being taken. As I aged, I noticed how much quicker the process seemed to take. Yet, this was a family tradition that Henny always took part in and really seemed to enjoy. He never married or had children of his own, so we were probably as close as it was going to get (along with all his other friends kids).

The other christmas tradition we had with Henny was him coming over on Christmas day for dinner. I have a feeling this is going to be the hardest part of all of this to face this coming Christmas. It was the one time of year we would have steak (I know, I never eat it otherwise) and he would always cook it. We started this tradition about 15 years ago, but it seems like it’s the way it’s always been.

Henny’s annual family photo of Nate and his younger siblings

I’m more in shock than anything else right now, considering Henny was only 58 years old. There are a lot of things that don’t seem real, like we still have a batch of his amazing chocolate chip cookies in our freezer that he made at Christmas. When we’d go to his dinner parties, he used to always send us home with extra of whatever dessert he had served and so we still have a piece of his tupperware in our apartment that we had intended to return on our next dinner with him at his apartment. I’ll never get to have those things again and I’m not sure I know how to handle that.

I’ll end this post by telling a story that I think encapsulates what kind of guy he was. Henny came down for our wedding in October and was driving back up to NYC right after it ended (which was around 8pm).One of Amy’s bridesmaids, and my friend Kim, needed a ride back up to the city. I didn’t even have to ask, he just offered to take a complete stranger friend of mine back up to Brooklyn. I asked Kim afterwards how the ride back was and she said they talked the whole way back, despite having just met 2 hours prior. He would do anything for us and his other friends. At least I still have the photographs he took of us, but I will miss him.

I’m so glad Henny gave us this pasta maker for a present. He knew how much I liked to cook and now every time I use it, I’m going to think of him.

I have to say that making pasta was SO easy. Like, almost so easy that I might make it fresh every time I want it instead of getting pasta from a box. The only issue is the pasta maker attachments that I have can only make large flat sheets (lasagna), fettuccine  and spaghetti. If you want farfalle you make the large flat sheet and then cut and shape it, but it takes more effort. To make any noodles with a hole in them requires another attachment. Unfortunately for me, Nate doesn’t like long noodles, but the next time I make this I’m doing fettuccine because it’s just quicker.

So many bowties. So many adorable little bowties. Right? If anything, I will make these again for the cuteness. Oh and speaking of cuteness, how cute are Nate and his siblings in those photos :)

Next up I’ll share a recipe I made using this farfalle!