Saturday, January 29, 2011

Dallas Farmers Market Loses One Of It's Best Friends



Ida with Sevy
1996 Friends of the Farmers
Market Hoedown

 Ida Papert, great mother (Mombo), wonderful wife of the late Sam Papert, Jr, cookbook author and founding member of Dallas Farmers Market Friends passed away yesterday. She was needed elsewhere.

It’s not about how or when you die, it’s about how you live. Ida lived well. She was instrumental in organizing a non-profit way, way back in the 1990's to help support and build up the Dallas Farmers Market. From implementing the Farmer’s Hoedown fund raiser every year, to organizing and working the seasonal Chefs Cooking Series at the DFM Resource Center, to writing and selling 1000 copies of the Papert Family Cookbook whose sales enriched the market. And this was what she did for retirement.

Looking through my archives I’m finding many, many pictures of Ida, from the cooking classes, hoedowns, dinners and even a cruise we went on together over the last 20 years. After 15 years of DFM cooking classes, she wrote a second cookbook, Extra Helpings, to help fund a DCCCD scholarship endowment named after Jim “Sevy” Severson. To thank him for a good 15 years of success and friendship, but to also help finance a student’s dream of becoming a chef.

We saw her last having dinner at Suze with one of her sons, about a month ago. She looked beautiful. Frail, but appearing to be in good health, she was wearing a stylish white coat, her smile as big as ever. Hopefully that smile, and her good name will be remembered by Dallas in years to come as we miss her spirit and enthusiasm.  Rest in peace, Mama Ida.