Judi Hendricks's Blog, page 3

They met on a merry-go-round and have been going around together ever since.

December 13, 1942

On a winter day in 1942, 18-year-old Ruth Adrian and three girlfriends were spending the afternoon at the Fleishhacker Zoo in San Francisco.  While riding the Eugene Friend Carousel they spied a group of sailors.  It being less than two months after Pearl Harbor, there were probably lots of sailors in San Francisco waiting to ship out to the Pacific.  This particular group happened to include a young Texan named Doug Huggins who had been on the USS St. Louis, survived to tell about it, and was in San Francisco waiting for his next assignment.

One of the girls, possibly Ruth, suggested that perhaps if they all looked at these boys long enough, the sailors would notice them.  Eye contact was made and a conversation struck up.  The afternoon ended with the boys going back to the girls’ apartment to play cards.  This led to an agreement to go out to dinner en masse.

But first Ruth decided she would go up on the roof of the building to hang up her nylon stockings on the clothesline.  Doug gallantly volunteered to accompany her.  Just in case.  After all, it was war time.  In the course of hanging the stockings, Doug admitted he had an ulterior motive.  He wanted to ask her if she would be with him at dinner.  It seemed like a good idea to Ruth.

He was cute.  He was funny and he seemed kind.  And he could quote from the Bible.  She hadn’t dated many boys who could.  They saw each other a few more times in the five days before he shipped out to Bora Bora.  She said she would write and she did.  He wrote back.  He returned to San Francisco twice more that year and then on December 13, 1942, he lied about his age to a judge in San Jose and they married, having spent less than a month face to face, but falling in love by mail.

Immediately following the ceremony they took a bus downtown to a photographer to have their wedding portrait made.  The honey moon was a night in a San Francisco hotel.  Then they both went back to work, he on a minesweeper and she in the office of a shipyard.

In case you were wondering, Doug and Ruth Huggins are my parents, and they just

December 13, 2012

celebrated their 70th anniversary.  Congratulations, Mom & Dad.  I love you both very much.

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Re-Thinking New Year’s Resolutions

My friend Marie Schnelle took this shot and used it for her New Year’s greeting.

While helping my parents clean out their attic last summer, I discovered a shoebox full of my old photos, greeting cards, and a five-year diary.  If you’re a woman of a certain age, you’ll recall the kind of diary I’m talking about…fake leather with fake gold embossing and a small lock with a flimsy key that might or might not deter a younger brother.  Every one of my friends in high school had one of these books.  Some even wrote in them.

I did, but not regularly.  I started each year with good intentions, but usually after two or three weeks, school and extracurricular activities, parties and movies and excursions to the beach distracted me.  My entries dwindled to an occasional sentence about some life altering event.  Such as the boy I was currently crazy about inviting my best friend to the prom.

The entry on January 1 of my senior year was a list of my New Year’s Resolutions and included the following:

Do homework immediately after I get home.

Practice piano one hour every night.

Lose ten pounds.

Change personality.

I don’t think I managed to make good on any of them.

Beginning in college, I pretty much gave up on New Year’s resolutions.  I’m not sure if I was disillusioned or just lazy, but for many years I dismissed the whole idea as unrealistic and a waste of time.  Until last year.

Turning sixty-five kicked off an orgy of self analysis and soul searching the likes of which I hadn’t engaged in since I was nineteen and first reading French philosophers.  I won’t bore you with details, but one of the exercises involved deciding what attribute I most valued in other people.  Intelligence, charm, humor, creativity…all important, all admirable.  But eventually I realized the people I was most drawn to shared only one thing…a certain generosity of spirit.

It seemed to me that there had been too many times in my life when I took the small view, perhaps afraid that I would be seen as weak or that I might be taken advantage of.  I was embarrassed to realize that in nearly every instance, it wouldn’t have made any difference except that I could have been kinder, more giving, more open.  So I resolved for 2012 that, given a choice, I would try to err on the side of generosity.  The surprising thing was that during the past year, I occasionally remembered that resolution and acted on it.  It made me like myself better.

So for 2013, rather than trying for another game changing resolution, I’ve decided to just re-up.  I think if you err on the side of generosity, you cover most of the bases.

Happy New Year…

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Sweet Corn

Henry James believed “Summer afternoon” to be the two most beautiful words in the English language.  He believed it so strongly that he said it twice.

Well, summer afternoons are indeed wondrous, but I think I have a serious contender for the title of two most beautiful words:

Sweet corn.

It’s that time of year in New Mexico.  My friend Jo-Ann and I got up early yesterday morning and went to The Station for coffee and then wandered down through the railyard to the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market.  We bought too much stuff, as usual…fat red radishes, a bouquet of oak leaf lettuce, perfect snow peas, a new (to me) variety of apple called Wolf River that I haven’t tried yet, blackberries that are so plump and ripe I’ll probably be forced to eat them in the next two days.

I didn’t really expect the corn guy to be there yet, but I took a quick peek out back (just in case) and my heart went boom…he was there!  With his trailer full of sweet white corn.  Six dollars and fifty cents for a dozen ears.  I couldn’t help myself.  I bought a dozen.  Dumb.  Geoff’s out of town, and Blue can’t eat corn on the cob…something about no opposable thumbs.  What to do?

I confess, I had a plan in mind all along.  I know, I know…“dried corn” sounds totally boring.  The truth is, it’s anything but.

I actually tried this a number of years ago and it turned out great, but the instructions got lost and I forgot about it.  And I haven’t always had access to a dependable supply of top quality corn.

Last year after stuffing my face with corn on the cob, I was lamenting the fact that the season for it is so short and wishing there was some way to have good corn in months other than August.  Some way other than buying frozen corn, which is a poor red-headed stepchild to the real thing.  Suddenly I remembered my dried corn project.  I went straight to my computer, typed “dried corn” into my favorite search engine (Dogpile) and immediately found what I was looking for.

Now, lest you think you can just throw some ears of corn out on the back porch to dry in the sun, let me clarify.  This does involve a little work and a little time.  But it’s sooo worth it.  The recipe is available at Mother Earth News and Straight from the Farm websites, but to save you the trip, here it is:

Oven Dried Sweet Corn

8 cups fresh corn cut from the cob (about 12 ears)

Yes, I know.  We’re all used to instant gratification, but here’s what I did.  On the shade of the patio, I assembled a big old glass of iced tea, the boombox with an Emmylou Harris CD, a dozen ears of corn, a small, sturdy paring knife, an old cookie sheet, a trash bag for the shucks and silks, a big bowl for the corn, and my dog Blue for company.  The whole operation—husking, cutting and clean-up took about an hour.  A very pleasant hour, I might add.

2 tsp kosher salt 

If you use table salt, use about 1½ tsp.

1½ tsp sugar (optional)

A matter of personal taste, but it does make the corn caramelize nicely.

¼ c heavy cream

I had no cream in the house and I was too lazy to go to the store, so I used half & half.  It worked fine, but the cream is really better.  The extra butterfat adds another layer of wonderfulness.

 

Preheat the oven to 200°F and get out two half-sheet pans or cookie sheets.  You can spritz them with a bit of oil if you like, but it’s not strictly necessary.

Combine all ingredients in a (very) large saucepan or shallow pot.  I used my12-inch sauté pan and it was perfect.  Cook the whole thing over medium low heat, stirring often, until the cream is absorbed/evaporated.

Divide the corn between the two pans and bake in the oven for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes and switching the pans top to bottom.  Stirring keeps the kernels separate and opening the oven door helps get rid of the steam that builds up.

After an hour, turn off the heat and allow the oven to cool, but don’t remove the corn.  When the oven is cold, turn it back on and bake for another hour, stirring every 15 minutes.  Repeat until the corn is completely dehydrated.  (If you want, you can leave it in the oven overnight and resume the process in the morning.)

The kernels will be about half their original size, roasty-golden brown, chewy, sweet and yummy.  Let the corn cool put it in zip lock freezer bag(s) and use as you will.  I used the last of my stash from last summer about three weeks ago and it was still great.

 

To reconstitute, use 2 cups of cold water for each cup of corn.  In a saucepan, bring the water and corn to a boil over high heat.  Reduce to moderate/low heat and simmer, partly covered, until most of the liquid has evaporated and the corn is tender, 20-25 minutes.  You can then use it in corn bread, spoon bread, salads, salsa, tacos, wherever you would use fresh corn.

You can also just grab a handful out of the freezer and toss it in soups, stews and casseroles for a little bit of summer afternoon during a cold, dark winter.

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Deep in the West

Houston, Texas 1978.  Or possibly 1979.  My RAM isn’t what it used to be.

Shake and me

I was mourning a failed marriage, sharing an apartment with a friend in the Montrose, an area best described as “awaiting gentrification.”  It was affordable and convenient to the Delta Airlines reservations office where we both worked, but perhaps the best thing about it was its proximity to several small funky bars where there was good live music several nights a week.  This was in the heyday of urban cowboys and the Austin sound, and there were lots of talented kickers schlepping their guitars around Texas.

So rather than sit around the apartment, bemoaning the tragedies of our lives, Jan and I sought consolation in music and margaritas, and we didn’t even have to drive home because most of the clubs were within walking distance.  Perfect!

It was at a place called Corky’s that I first heard Shake Russell.

Music has always been a touchstone for me, certain songs or types of music becoming the embodiment of my mental and emotional state at various times.  At that time and in that place nothing could have suited me better than the music of Shake Russell.  Beautiful melodies, bittersweet lyrics and the voice of a man who’s seen his share of life.  I bought the album (yes, the 33 rpm LP) “Songs on the Radio,” and the tracks “You’ve Got a Lover” and “Deep in the West” comforted me long after Texas was a dust cloud in my rear view mirror.

Fast forward to New Mexico August 19, 2009.

A woman named Dee Madole left the following message in the guestbook on my website:

Hi, Judi–I just received this email from my friend Helen!  How did you hear Shake?

(Helen wrote) “I woke up early this morning, around 5am – too early to get up, so I picked up the book I’m reading. It’s The Baker’s Apprentice by Judith Ryan Hendricks. After reading for a while, I came to a new chapter that began like this:

He likes going to Rhiannon’s in the morning when he’s the only one there. Sometimes he has a mooseburger, sometimes just coffee. She plays her entire collection of Texas music for him, some of it good, some awful, some he figures is simply an acquired taste. His favorite is one tape she has by a guy named Shake Russell. The recording sounds like it was done in somebody’s garage, maybe just because it’s a tape made from an old LP. But the tunes are contagious, the lyrics poignant, and the guy’s voice has just the right amount of gravel.

Curious, was this “Songs on the Radio”?

Turns out Dee Madole is Shake Russell’s wife.  We began a three-way email correspondence—Dee, her friend Helen and I—which culminated in lunch at the Magnolia Café when I was in Austin visiting my friend Susan.

New Mexico July 23, 2012

Shake Russell, Michael Hearn, Jimmy Stadler

Shake Russell played last night at the Santa Fe Plaza bandstand.  We asked some friends to go with us and it was a great evening.  The rain held off, the temperature cooled down, the Plaza was filled with people, sharing picnic suppers, dancing, singing along.  There were kids and dogs, tourists and locals.

Someone requested “Deep in the West,” and the first bars yanked that string in me and I was suddenly awash in memories.  I watched our friends slow dancing in front of the bandstand.  As it happens, Jerry is my ex-husband from all those years ago, and his wife, Karol, is now one of my closest friends.  After the last encore, I finally got to meet Shake Russell and tell him what his music has meant to me.

Life is so funny.  So interesting.  And often lovely.

Dancing on the Plaza

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