Ad Hudler's Blog, page 7

Signs of a Civilization in Decline: #4882E2

What these signs should really say: WARNING: INATTENTIVE PARENTS IN THE AREA!

Best Pimiento Cheese Recipe Ever

In the Hudler house we have what we call the Food Bible: a collection of recipes, torn from the pages of magazines and cookbooks and taped into a big journal book. For inclusion in the Food Bible the recipe must be loved by all three of us -- myself, Carol, and Haley. And whenever we're together -- which isn't that often anymore because Haley is nearly 22 -- I go to the Food Bible and choose an entree that I know will please us all.

Our newest inclusion is a spicy take on an old-time Southern favorite: pimiento cheese. Credit for this goes to Saveur magazine.

1 10-ounce package sharp white cheddar
1/2 cup packed, jarred pimientos, finely chopped, plus 1 tbsp. brine, reserved from jar
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, finely chopped or through a press
1/2 habanero chile, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped.
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste.
Tabasco, to taste.

Directions: Finely grate cheese and transfer to a food processor, along with brine, peppers, mayo, garlic and chili. Season with salt, pepper and Tabasco, and pulse until lightly chunky. Put atop your favorite crackers. Or, as we do: Make a sandwich with roast chicken, sliced tomatoes and a thick spreading of this tasty orange treat.

I know habaneros are hot -- remind me to tell you the horrific story some time about how I almost ended up in an emergency room with first-degree burns on my private parts -- but the heat is cut dramatically by the cheese in this recipe. If you like spicy, you'll love this.
Right, Mom?

Those Brits: Too damned serious.

When my local NPR affiliate went all-talk recently I thought I'd love the change. I specifically was excited about getting BBC-America.

Well, I guess I was wrong. Have you listened to BBC for more than 10 minutes? For the record, I like the Brit accent, but those BBC announcers seem to be over the top. They talk as if they are a caricature of a Brit accent, as if National Lampoon was taking its turn at making fun of them: too austere, too intense, NO laughter at all: "This is Betty Blah-Blah with the VERY-serious BBC, reporting from Tehran, a VERY serious place on this VERY serious planet, and even though we longer have a British Empire we are going to try to convince you that we still do by sounding VERY serious and arrogant."

Scary moment in the men's room ...

This just happened in the Columbus airport: I was standing at the urinal, doing my business, when a man walked up to the urinal next to me and, as he unbuckled his pants, asked, "So, are you excited?"

I was just about to tell him "no" when I noticed he had a bluetooth headset on his opposite ear.

Crisis averted.

What they teach you in Housekeeping School: Task #2455T4

Artisanal pillow-denting

Valentine's Day in the SkyLodge

So I bought my wife a pair of earrings for the day of love ... and she gave me this:
That's a 6,387-carat chocolate diamond. And don't it look nice on my furry, big hand?

Goodbye, city life!

When my wife first got transferred to Nashville we knew she'd be spending most of the time in Tennessee by herself while I commuted from southwest Florida. We found a swell high-rise condo on the 29th floor of a building called The Viridian, and, because of the heavenly views, we named our place the SkyLodge. This worked nicely for awhile....until we sold our home in Florida.
Suddenly, 1,000 square feet had to hold not only Carol but me, full-time, and our two cats, who proceeded to take over the condo as if it were their own kitty condo. There are two couches. Each cat claimed one, which means we find ourselves shooshing and angering felines every time we want to sit down. There is a cat box in one bathroom, a cat box in the bathtub of the other. Every time we open the refrigerator door they come meowing and begging. They have basically ruined high-rise living for us. I joked with our friend, who is the condo association president:
"I know it's a $500 fine to throw a cigarette butt off my balcony, but is it still only $500 for something significantly larger? ... Or does the size of the fine increase with the size of the object?"
"Like what?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know ... like a ... like a cat, maybe?"
"Same fine," he said. "Cats and ciggies will cost the same."
Instead, we bought a house. It's a swell place in the Green Hills neighborhood, with a huge screened-in porch that overlooks a ravine of trees that are atwitter with birds. Though I certainly won't miss the aggressive homeless folk, I'm reluctant to leave downtown. We're surrounded by countless interesting people with jobs that take them all over the world. Lyricists for some of the biggest names in music, for example, live here. Last week the head singer of Lady Antebellum was eating meatloaf with friends on my floor. I also believe that our building, though I can't prove it, also is the center of Nashville's gay mafia, which means the Christmas decorations are faaaaaabulous and we know everything cool within 20 square miles. I have worn a pink cowboy hat while drinking Cosmos and joined friends shouting out at the TV as we watch Glee.
I'm afraid we're going to be bored with the folk in our new leafy neighborhood. Imagine this scenario:
"Oh, it's really nice to meet you," I'll say to Bill Blah. "What do you do?"
"I'm a stock analyst," he'll say.
"And ...?" I'll ask. "Is that all? Anything else?"
"What do you mean?"
"Don't you write music for anyone famous?" I'll ask. "Do you run an entertainment company of some kind?"
"Uhhh ... well ...."
"Do you perform as a drag queen somewhere on the weekends? That would be cool."
"Uhm ... no ... but I do collect stamps."
Just kidding. I'm sure I'm gonna love the folks on Wentworth Avenue. Each time we've driven down the new street someone has waved at us from a driveway. I'm sure that Green Hills, like downtown, is filled with interesting people -- because this is Nashville, one of America's top-ten-favorite cities in just about every travel magazine.
A promise to my new neighbors: If I venture out in my underwear to get the mail, I'll promise to run so as to minimize disgust.

From the photo grab-bag ...

Title: Mufasa on Pride RockMixed media: Human, trees, rock and sky.

So long, dear readers ...

As some of you know, I've been toiling for the past few years on an empty-nest memoir. It has been the most grueling writing project of my life. Just months after our only child left for college, my wife, Carol, took a job in Tennessee. Having been the full-time caregiver in our family for the past two decades, I suddenly found my life empty with no direction or purpose.

You'd think I would have followed Carol to Nashville, but I'd lived in our Florida house for nearly 10 years, and after following Carol's jobs to five different states over the years, I decided to dig in. I refused to move. I would commute. I and the cats stayed in Fort Myers, and I dropped into Nashville for a few days here and there – and then those trips became shorter and fewer. Unconsciously, Carol and I started drifting apart.

After one drunken solitary night, I awoke to find that I'd arranged my daughter's baby teeth in a lifelike arc on the kitchen table – and I knew I had to get out of the house. I hopped into my truck and started driving around the country, in a sort of Mister-Toad's-Wild-Ride adventure. My wife now calls this period "the year Ad ran away." Frankly, both of us thought our marriage was coming to an end. It's not that we disliked each other – it's just that we were tired and beat up from all those years of fighting on the front lines of parenting. We'd reached the natural point in a marriage when both parties re-examine the bonds of their relationship and, often, decide to go their own ways.

While I drove to places like Amarillo, Texas and Oklahoma City and Little Rock, Arkansas, I wrote and sent pages of a memoir-in-progress to my agent, who said this: "These adventures are funny, Ad. You're a funny guy. But you've got to remember that in every memoir something is at stake. What's at stake here?"

For months, I didn't know. And then a series of events (in Lincoln, Nebraska, in Wichita Falls, Texas, in Someplace I Can't Remember) brought me to my senses – and I suddenly realized that I was on the verge of losing the most important thing in my life: my wife, who had started building a solitary life without me. The realization hit me like a bucket of cold water dumped on my head. It was as if I'd been clouded by grief – the loss of a child – and I was simply going through the motions of day-to-day existence.

With great ferocity I set out to win back her skeptical heart. It was not easy. My odyssey made me realize my shortcomings as a husband and friend, and I had to admit to myself all the things I'd done wrong over the years. I'd been a great dad but not-so-great husband.

Slowly, I regained her trust. We are in a great spot right now. It's as if we've fallen in love all over again. (Sorry, darlin', but there's no way you're ever gonna get rid of me. 'Til death do us part.)

All this would make a great book, wouldn't it? But you're not going to read it because I'm not going to finish it.

After a decade of being a full-time author, I've decided to move on. I'm weary of words. I'm tired of being inside my head for so much of every day. There's good reason why so many writers drink heavily: they can't shut down the alternate reality that they've created and that continues to run like a carousel inside their brains all day, all night. I've found that I need something tactile, something physical. I want to be able to read books for pleasure again. (An author always deconstructs and critiques books as he reads, hoping to learn something about the craft.)

There's good reason why Linc Menner, the protagonist of my househusband novels, was a landscape architect. Anyone who's read my books knows how much I love plants. Unlike so many writers, I don't feel the need to write – I never have. I feel the need to create. Years ago I simply chose words as my medium because I'd been raised in a five-generation newspaper family. Words are what I know.

I'm simply switching mediums of expression. In an example of life imitating art, I'm going to become a full-time professional urban gardener. I'm now immersed in the Tennessee Master Gardener program. I'm reading books on business plans and dreaming up marketing schemes. After living in tropical zone 10 for the past 11 years, I've got much to learn about the plant life in zone 7A.

I've met many wonderful people in my years as novelist, via book tours and my website and through book clubs. Y'all have made this job and journey very enjoyable – and I hope we keep in touch via facebook and twitter. And I'll still occasionally write: I love writing short stories and essays, such as the one titled "Tree Bitch," which ran in last summer's Best of the South issue of The Oxford American. I'm going to post and sell these things as Kindle singles on Amazon. The days of the New York publisher are numbered – and writers no longer need a middleman to distribute their work.

After several months of living in a downtown Nashville highrise, Carol and I have found a swell home in the Green Hills neighborhood. We love Nashville. It's got the charm and niceness of the South with the openness and entrepreneurial spirit of the West. There are so, so many smart and talented people in this creative city. It's a great place for starting over, for starting something new.

So here I go …

My Nomination for Creepiest Piece of Art Found on the Internet in 2011

Ew! That's all I can say about this.