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Food editor Bill Pitcher and friends dish from The Record Kitchen to yours.

Jul 11, 2007

Muirhead founder dies

A few hours after posting the previous entry early Tuesday morning, I was at the Javits Center and headed straight upstairs to Booth 843. Muirhead of Ringoes.

Not seeing the familiar faces of Ed and Doris Simpson or their daughter, Barbara, who joined the company a few years ago, I continued on to the other 2,399 booths, peeking back every few minutes. Finally, I found Barbara's husband, John Vadnais. "Will Ed be here today?" I asked.

He brought me back behind the table of fruit butters, chutneys, mustards and sauces. "Ed died Sunday," he said. "But he wanted the show to go on."

Edward Rudolph Simpson had the strangest of career twists. After a stint in the U.S Merchant Marines and 10 years of owning a sheet metal company, he and Doris turned their colonial home along Route 202 in Ringoes into a restaurant. They called it Muirhead, the name for the property on which it stood, and served only four entrees, which were ordered when customers phoned their reservations. The big, formal rooms downstairs served as dining rooms. The kids waited tables, Doris ran the kitchen and Ed ran the front of the house and made sauces and salad dressings in his spare time -- usually preparing enough to satisfy the requests of customers who wanted to take extra home.

Twenty years later, when Ed and Doris finally closed the restaurant and called it a career, he launched another one. Saucemaker. His first entry into the specialty food movement was a pecan and pumpkin butter, which was a finalist in the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade's (NASFT) annual competition. The demand for the product was so great, Ed had to turn to an outside producer to produce the thousands of cases needed just for Williams-Sonoma stores nationwide. His kitchen and storeroom in the carriage house behind the big house were spacious but not nearly large enough.

As Ed added years, he also added products. Spaghetti sauce. Apple butter. Honey mustard. Herbes de Provence salad dressing. All made in the carriage house. When I met him there five years ago to talk about mustard, he was tinkering with green tomato mincemeat. He sent me home with a jar, which went directly to my father-in-law, who loved the stuff. I didn't have the heart to tell him I didn't like either green tomatoes or mincemeat. But somebody did. It ended up being a finalist in that year's NASFT competition.

One of his daughters, Barbara, joined the family business full-time in 2003, and Muirhead continued to thrive. Easy online ordering was added to the Web site. More stores began stocking what had now become familiar-looking jars with the simple label. And the product line continued to expand. Pear and port butter. Banana-walnut butter. At 79 years old, Ed was still in charge, leading the selling effort at every Fancy Food Show, always dressed to the nines in a sportscoat and necktie.

In November, I was back in Ringoes to talk with Doris -- his bride of 58 years -- about hearth cooking for the holidays, a story inspired by the re-release of a book she'd written some 20 years ago. Along with photographer Chris Pedota, we savored her hearth-cooked mushroom-barley soup and an apple crisp made with Ed's apple butter. But we missed Ed that day. He was at the doctor's, Doris said.

What was first believed to be a routine illness gave way to a diagnosis of cancer, and the short, sturdy man who always seemed to be working grew more frail through the spring, his family said. But he suffered quietly, even with a sense of humor, and didn't want extra attention. He was well enough to attend the dedication of a Merchant Marine monument in Somerville last month -- the Merchant Marines were always close to his heart -- and still wore a sweet smile behind his thin white beard in a photograph of the event in the Courier-News (pictured). But the last month was a tough one, family said. He died Sunday morning, shortly after the Fancy Food Show began. He was 80 years old.

In addition to Doris and Barbara, he leaves a daughter, Robin, and sons Mark and Neil and six grandchildren. For the obituary in the Courier-News, and to read more on a fascinating life well-lived, click here.