What’s been going on!
It is with extremely heavy hearts that we have to share the loss of one of our closest friends and the sweet side of the Triangle and North Carolina’s greatest food couple. Karen Barker passed away this past weekend after complications from a year and a half battle with cancer.
We first met Karen in 1984 when she and Ben had just started in the kitchen at the old La Residence in Chapel Hill, she bought some of the very first raspberries and blackberries we produced. We followed them out to The Fearrington House supplying them with berries for her increasingly incredible deserts and when they started the Magnolia Grill in Durham in 1986 we were there with berries, flowers and vegetables.
Our relationship grew over the three plus decades into a rare one-of-a-kind with both our professional sides which we wrote about in 2012 when they closed the Magnolia Grill and in the last dozen years with our personal travels together to explore some of the great food places in the world. It was Karen’s crazy, relentless reading and research that took the four of us to amazing off the beaten path food experiences as good as or better than the famous Michelin starred places. We now know how special our last trip together in October was.
Of course it was more than food. There were long, usually late at night, conversations about all subjects from running intense hands-on businesses to the Me Too movement. Karen always had deep insight and thoughtful commentary that we will miss dearly.
Yes she was awarded the Best Pastry Chef in the United States but the sweetest part of Karen was always her calmness, sly smile and sideways glance that sent a message that only you knew what that meant. We will miss her terribly as colleagues and friends and are heartbroken for Ben, Gabe and the family.
Picture of the Week
Enjoying each other’s company in Spello, Italy
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