Celebration of Life set for Cathy Cummings

The Village will host a memorial gathering for the 405 diningscape's First Lady of FOH

We start this week in February with an unusually sunny forecast with bittersweet news. Sean Cummings announced on social media channels that the celebration of life for his wife Cathy is scheduled for Sunday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Cathy passed away a little over a week ago following months of treatment for gallbladder cancer.

The event will take place at Civic Plaza in The Village. The park is adjacent to City Hall in The Village, 2304 Manchester Dr. Sean promises barbecue, refreshments and a live funk band. We’ll celebrate Cathy’s life in a place she and her community brought into existence.

In the video Sean posted, he insists that “Cathy wouldn’t want us to be sad,” and I wholeheartedly agree. He, of course, would know better than anyone, but the evidence came from Cathy herself back in September when she first shared the news about ongoing chemotherapy treatments. She spent most of that post thanking everyone around her and the facilities trying to help. Can’t believe anyone has ever made a cheerier announcement about such a dire situation. She had us all believing everything was going to be fine. And why not? Cathy was a staunch Catholic. No doubt her faith and the fruits of her labors on earth made her confident about the future, whether in this life or the next.

Glad to share the news, and hope to see you all there on Sunday. Skies are supposed to be sunny, according to the Norman Weather Center. Temperatures might sneak above 70.

Planned to share much more today, but the pitfalls of a one-man operation presented themselves last Wednesday when a little fever made a 10-2 split of my plans for this here Monday morning dispatch.

Plans were made, tickets purchased to attend Fryed House’s latest invasion of The Diner in downtown Norman. Missed out on lunch with Elena Farrar of Elemental Coffee at Paseo Grill and a chance to catch up with former Homeless Alliance kitchen manager Delbert Briggs at The Hutch. It also meant there was no chance I could swing by East Side Pizza House to help it celebrate its two-year anniversary and sample chef Jeff Chanchaleune’s first foray into pizza-making. And there would be no lining up for Sedalia’s seafood invasion of the pizza kitchen at Fair Weather Friend.

Don’t feel too sorry for me; I did spend 32 of 72 hours asleep.

I also slept through a very important day to the Food Dood Feed: It’s first birthday. That’s right, Feb. 16 was when The Food Dood Feed first percolated on Substack by making its own birth announcement. Four days later, the fun began.

With tomorrow the anniversary of the Feed’s first post, I’ll be back with some thoughts on that and an explanation (with photos) of how missing out on a spectacular Lunar New Year-Mardi Gras-Valentine’s Day treble due to illness was only possible because last Tuesday in the Farmers Market District was the Fattest.