Some small “writerly” triumphs

 

Flowerpot cake by Mary Dulle
Photo courtesy Mary Dulle

The Guppy (Going to be published) chapter of Sisters in Crime weekly opens the listserv to NPV (non-publishing victories) brags from members. I usually don’t respond because I don’t have a lot to brag about these days—published or not, I’ve been in a long dry spell, partly because I spent a lot of time on the Helen Corbitt book that never became a book. But today I do have some small victories.

One that I simply forgot to publicize because I put it aside to later make a “big” marketing effort, as if I knew how to do that, is that my one collection of short stories, Sue Ellen Learns to Dance and Other Stories, is now available on Amazon in audio version. It’s my second foray into audio publishing, but the first was not very successful, probably due to a lack of marketing. I vow to do better with this book. Short stories are hard for me—the idea has to hit me hard, and then I have to sit down and put it into words right away. I am in awe of people who write, “I am working on a short story.” I wonder how long it takes to write and polish 3,000 words. Yes, I go back and edit, but I almost never write a bit, put it aside, and go back and finish it.

Two of these stories, “Sue Ellen Learns to Dance” and “Fool Girl,” won Wrangler awards from the National Cowboy Museum and Hall of Fame, and one, “The Art of Dipping Candles,” brings me to tears every time I read it—a boastful things to say about one’s own writing, but it’s true. Try it.

Since my audio of Saving Irene was not the blockbuster I hoped, I had put aside the idea of audio, decided it wasn’t for me. But then Amazon made me an offer I couldn’t resist: a free audio version using AI. Now every author I know resists AI, fearful it will take over our creativity—and maybe our already published works. Plus it’s competition. AI can write a book much faster than the human brain can write, proof, edit, design, etc. Still, it was free. I tried it. Overall I thought the AI voice was acceptable—not great, but okay. In several instances, the inflection of a phrase or a word is not what I would have done, but I think the human ear may be less critical than the eye. The thing that most bothered me was the mispronunciation of Texas terms and place names. My AI “person” was clearly not a Texan. The town of Hereford became Her-e-ford, and the word cousie (for chuckwagon cook) was similarly butchered.

Since I’m blatantly marketing the book, here’s a link to the Amazon audio: Amazon.com: Sue Ellen Learns to Dance and Other Stories (Audible Audio Edition): Judy Alter, Alter Ego Publishing, Virtual Voice: Books It’s also available in Kindle and paperback editions, but the paperback has a different cover, a Dorothea Lange Depression photo that is a classic. I like it better than the updated cover, but I’m told it’s not as marketable. Really dislike that aspect of the writing business.

Oops. I’ve gone on so long I’ll have to be brief about my second small triumph: today was the second of Mary Dulle’s two-part class on the cooking of Helen Corbitt. Mary did a masterful job with such recipes as turkey mornay and flowerpot cakes (Ladybird’s favorite), and I got to talk about the seismic changes in American food culture during the fifties and a bit how that affects us today, the Greenhouse Spa (if you don’t remember it, google it—ultimate luxury in the sixties and seventies), and Corbitt’s books. She wrote five cookbooks, all of them still available today. The class was responsive, had people who really took part, and it was fun. I am still intrigued by the Corbitt story and hope to find other things to do with it in the future.

Meantime, tonight, back to editing Irene in a Ghost Kitchen.

Cooking for show and caring for Sophie

The contemporary compilation of selected recipes by Helen Corbitt.

Those two things have occupied my thoughts and much of my time the last two days. Sophie first.

I know very well that people do not go home from the hospital and instantly pick up the thread of their active lives. There’s an adjustment or recovery period. So why should it be any different for dogs? I’ve had one experience with this just over a year ago when Sophie came home too soon and had to return to the clinic for a few days. Monday night I thought we were in for something similar. She wasn’t much interested in eating, sort of moped around the house, not interested in going out. I was tiptoeing around the cottage and watching her out of the side of my eye. I decided it was best to give her occasional bits of affection but pretty much leave her alone to gather herself. Tuesday morning wasn’t much better, although she did eat about half her breakfast. I was a failure at getting her medications into her—that dog can lick around a pill like nothing you’ve ever seen. Hide it in cheese? Forget it. I wouldn’t have called her lethargic but perhaps passive.

Tuesday afternoon I heard one sharp bark from her, which was the first sound, and by evening, when Mary D. came for supper, Soph was more interested in what was going on. She ate her supper and asked for her dessert—canned green beans, which the vet said to give her sparingly. And then demanded her little doggie treats. We were back on familiar ground.

Today I feel we’ve really made progress—she’s eating, and by feeding her in small bits, I managed to hide a half pill in each bit and got all three down her. Christian tried to hide one in cheese, which only made her suspicious of cheese when I tried to give her a piece mid-day. Same with pill pockets—I tried to hide her tiny noon pill in one and give it to her—she clamped her mouth shut, so I left it on the floor, and she ate it, pill and all. Am I winning this war by any chance? She still lies around the cottage a lot, but hey! She did that before all this. She’s an elderly dog.

I so appreciate the concern for her. Fun to be dining out tonight with a friend and have another friend stop by the table—her first question was, “How’s Sophie?” and then a conversation about my Sophie and another dog named Sophie, belonging to a mutual friend, ensued. I had dinner with Carol Roark at Lucile’s, a restaurant both she and I like (and some of our friends don’t)—we find it’s comfort food. So tonight we split a chicken-fried steak, and we caught up on things personal and political. Been too long since we visited. As on every one of my ventures into the outside world, now that I’m home so much, I saw new buildings, things I didn’t recognize. I’m always saying, “When did they build that?” But it was fun to get out.

My other adventure today was to be on a Zoom program with Mary D. She teaches cooking classes for the Silver Frogs, TCU’s flourishing senior noncredit program. She came up with the idea of a two-part class on Helen Corbitt—she would cook, and I would fill in with background on Corbitt, her career, and her years at Neiman Marcus. It was fun, though it would have been smoother if we’d done a dry run before, and Mary had trouble with her power point program. I thought I’d used almost all my Corbitt stories, which left me worried about what I’d talk about in the next session a week from today. But since then, I’ve had some good thoughts.

It occurs to me that my Food of the Fifties interest could be such a program—I’d begin by asking folks if they eat meatloaf? Salmon patties? Squash casserole? And then talk about what a dramatic decade of change the Fifties was in America’s food history. Which would segue into recipes from that cookbook I’m working on, which is turning out to be a tribute to my mom. Lots of her good recipes. I’m not sure where to go with that thought.

So it’s been a satisfying, good day, and I’m sleepy. Night y’all!

Sophie’s story part II

Sophie, 12 weeks old
The day we brought her home.

Tonight, the cottage is quiet and a bit lonely. Sophie is spending the night in the hospital. She had taken lately, with the warmer weather, to lying on the patio until late at night when I enticed her inside with a bit of cheese so I could go to bed. During the evening, she’d come in from time to time to get a drink of water and, I hope, to see that I was where she thought I ought to be, but it was not as though we spent the evening chatting. Still, I miss knowing she out there, and I may even miss her demand for breakfast at seven in the morning.

She is in a specialty clinic, not your neighborhood vet (think big dollars), but the doctor who saved her life is one of my favorite people. She needs his spot-on knowledge. He called tonight to say that she’s still pretty rough. This morning he reported that her diabetes was out of control, her blood sugar ridiculously high, and she had opened the old wound (once a bed sore) on her front elbow. (I’d caught her licking that now and again but she stopped when I told her to.) Tonight he says the sugar numbers are much better, so I will wait for a morning report.

I like to say this all happened so fast—the first clear sign was yesterday morning when she didn’t eat her breakfast. But in retrospect, I know there were small signs—another time I’ll be more alert to them. She, who is always ravenous, turned down her dry kibble though she kept eating the canned food. And if I poured broth over the kibble, she’d eat it. But that quit yesterday. We caught her chewing nonedible things. And both last night and this morning she disappeared into the far reaches of the back yard where I cannot see her and cannot follow with my walker. I’ve had experience before with a dog who went off to die, so that freaked me out. In fact yesterday in the wee morning hours I called Christian but just then she poked her head around into the door, and I hit disconnect quickly. But last night and this morning Jordan and Christian had to go get her and carry her back to the cottage.

So tonight I am feeling sorry for myself. Jordan and Christian have gone to a friend’s b’day dinner at Don Artemio’s, the relatively new, upscale restaurant featuring the food of northeastern Mexico—think Saltillo and San Miguel, also think nopales, cabrito, tacos de Lengua (tongue tacos and my favorite on the menu). Don Artemio’s was a finalist for the best new restaurant in the James Beard Awards for 2023. I suggested jokingly Jordan order the cabrito, because that’s what I want the next time I dine there. I knew she’d frown, and I bet she orders a steak because that’s what she likes and what she is comfortable with. Me? I want to try new things, as long as they are not too spicy.

But more than feeling sorry for myself, I am feeling sorry for Sophie. I know she thinks we’ve abandoned her. She hates the clinic, and we all know when you feel bad, you want to be home, not in some sterile place. Fingers crossed, prayers said that she can come home tomorrow.

Tonight Mary came for happy hour. She is to do a two-part cooking class on Helen Corbitt for the Silver Frogs (non-credit, community classes from TCU for an older audience, a truly vital program.) Mary cooks from her kitchen via a Zoom-like arrangement, and for the Corbitt program she plans to have me chime in with my research into Corbitt’s career. So she showed us the treasures she’d bought for the demonstration—a Hollandaise sauce mix, chutney, flower pots for the cakes Corbitt made for LadyBird, etc., and the Power Point presentation she’d put together. I declined to do that because I have no idea about Power Point. It was fun to talk about Corbitt, and I enjoyed the hour. Then Mary and Jordan rushed off and I ate leftover meat loaf and a small green salad.

But I’ve got great cooking plans coming up—only to be told Jordan wants a b’day dinner of tacos Saturday night. I have a recipe for chicken tacos I might try to talk her into, but I am not hopeful.

Pray for Soph, please. I hope tomorrow I can report she’s safely home.

Two views on the food we ate—and what I ate tonight

 

Today I happened across a reference to Adelle Davis, the most famous American nutritionist in the twentieth century, and it brought back a flood of memories. My mom was a follower of Davis, and as a result I remember wheat germ in cereals, honey instead of sugar in cornbread, and maybe a bit of Brewer’s yeast in who knows what.

Probably the Davis book that most influenced Mom was Let’s Cook It Right (1947) which was, some sources claim, an attempt to update the popular Joy of Cooking. Davis’s goal was to teach people to eat properly for nutrition, and to that end she advocated nutritional supplements such as wheat germ and powdered milk, the avoidance of prepared food, sugar, and preservatives, and an emphasis on fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grain breads. Davis believed that outcomes in life depended on nutrition, and women who did not well properly during pregnancy would have unhealthy babies who would not do well later in life. Almost no one in America ate a healthy diet, according to Davis.

She criticized both food producers and the medical community for their lack of knowledge about nutrition. Food purveyors, she claimed, misled us about harmful ingredients in their products, and physicians, ignorant of the truth, prescribed unhealthy diets for their patients. Needless to say, she had many critics.

I can remember once as an older teen I had some sort of severe infection, and the doctor assigned to care for me was gentle in his approach—he was after all, an old family friend, as were almost all the doctors on the staff of the hospital where Dad was administrator. This particular one—his name was Ward—said, “I know your mother has some unusual diet ideas.” I have always remembered that moment, though I don’t remember what came afterward.

Running into Adelle today was almost like running into a long-lost friend, but what struck me most was similarities and yet contrast to Helen Corbitt (if you read my blog and don’t know by now who Corbitt was, I give up!). Davis was born in 1904 and died in 1974; Corbitt was born in 1906 and died in 1978. They were contemporaries, both nutritionists, both dedicated to changing American eating habits. Both focused on fresh food and vegetables and proper cooking methods. Books by both women continue to sell well, all these yeas later.

But Davis took the academic route--one book had over 2,000 footnoted references to medical journals and studies. Her tone was peachy, almost scolding for bad habits, verging on the shrill.

Corbitt on the other hand found joy in food, delight in the flavors she combined, the dishes she created. She once claimed God had put he on earth to teach southerners not to overcook green beans. When Stanley Marcus wanted her to share her cream of tomato soup recipe with a visiting dignitary, she demurred and later explained they wouldn’t want him to know it began with a can of Campbell’s. Corbitt’s arena was smaller too—where Davis had a national audience, Corbitt reached mostly people in Texas and surrounding states. But Corbitt’s books are cookbooks with no judgement beyond such cautions as cooking vegetable al dente and often with chatty notes to a recipe.

That’s it—two women, similar backgrounds, similar goals, and such different paths. I have no conclusions to draw about which one succeeded better. Both have pretty much slipped into obscurity these days. And maybe that’s my mission—to rescue them.

So with my head full of healthy eating, guess what I had for dinner tonight? A plate from the potuck buffet for Christian’s birthday—Cane’s chicken fingers, that decadent and ubiquitous potato casserole with sour cream, butter, etc., a sour cream corn dip, some really good dippers that were so crisp they must have been deep fried in a ton of grease, marinated black-eyed peas (okay that was my contribution and Corbitt’s recipe). It was good, and I enjoyed it, but I could feel those two nutritionists frowning at me.

By contrast, one of the thoughtful guests brought me a bag of tomatoes, peaches, and squash from her family’s fresh market. I guess it all balances out.

Here’s to a healthy and delicious daily diet!

Helen Corbitt and what Texans ate

 

Helen Corbitt

Some of you may remember I’ve been off and on trying for three or four years to write a book about Helen Corbitt, legendary doyenne of food service at Neiman Marcus. My effort didn’t work for a variety of reasons, one among them few people thought my idea was as interesting as I did (hat tip to Travis Snyder of Texas Tech Press who did like the idea). My thesis was and is that she came at an interesting time in the history of food in the US.

A native of upstate New York and a trained dietician, Corbitt came to Texas in 1940 to teach at the University of Texas at Austin. She was dismayed to find, as Prudence McIntosh wrote for Texas Monthly, “no artichokes, no fresh raspberries, no herbs except decorative parsley, only beef (chicken-fried, barbecued, or well done), potatoes (fried or mashed and topped with a glop of cream gravy), and wedges of iceberg with sweet orange dressing. Fruit salad meant canned pears or pineapple with a dollop of mayonnaise and a grating of cheddar cheese. Canned asparagus was a remarked-upon delicacy, as were Le Sueur canned peas.^”

She moved on to the Houston Country Club, then a brief stint at Joske’s department store, and next the Driskill Hotel in Austin. Stanley Marcus began offering her a generous position at Neiman’s long before1955, when she finally accepted.

Meanwhile it was an era when forces were encouraging women to get out of the kitchen, to shortcut cooking, use prepared food and modern appliances, free themselves from the drudgery of the apron. Food critic Poppy Cannon published The Can-Opener Cookbook in 1951; Peg Bracken followed with The I Hate to Cook Cookbook in 1960. During the fifties, manufacturers were busy finding new consumers for prepared food since the military no longer needed as many MREs, and appliance manufacturers came up with appliances that practically prepared the entire meal. Futurists predicted housewives would soon be able to put an entire meal on the table in less than fifteen minutes.

Corbitt’s advice to housewives, however, was “Get back in the kitchen.” (She actually saved at least one marriage with that advice.) She believed in fresh ingredients, tasteful presentation, and careful combination of flavors. That chicken bouillon that is still served in the Zodiac? It took hours of cooking. Her signature dish, marinated black-eyed peas (also called Texas caviar) marinated at least two days before service. There was no instant food in her repertoire. One of her battles in her effort to teach Texans how to eat was the “al dente war”—she believed overcooking sapped vegetables of their flavor and health benefits. Everything from green beans to asparagus should be crisp. In a way, her cooking, rich with butter and cream, paved the way for James Beard and Julia Child.

Corbitt was a feisty, red-haired Irish woman with a temper. Stories abound about her tenure at Neiman’s, her friendships with everyone from President  Lyndon B. Johnson and his Lady Bird to the Prince of Wales, her occasional bursts of temper and outspoken moments.

Corbitt’s legacy lives on in her five cookbooks, which are still in print. Yet today I doubt even Dallas residents, except those of my generation, recognize her name. In her retirement, she traveled and lectured all over the South and Southwest, but she had almost no television presence, as Beard and Child did, and her reputation, while not limited to Texas, was pretty much regional.

I still think her story is interesting, and her accomplishments deserving of wider attention. Hmmm. The books is not going to fly, but I have submitted an article to a historical magazine (that the fifties is historical still boggles my mind). And I’ll keep thinking of ways to tell Corbitt’s story. No, I don’t see a novel in it.

Want to try a recipe? Google Helen Corbitt’s marinated black-eyed peas. If recipes tell you to add a lot of vegetables, move on. Her recipes has peas and onions.

 

The European tour continues, sort of

 

Jordan's shipboard view

It’s not actually Europe. Jordan embarked at Brest, France on a ship from the Ponant cruise line bound for Iceland. The neat part about the cruise is that instead of going out to sea and around Ireland, the ship is going up the channel between England and Ireland, so she will get to see England and Scotland on the starboard side and Ireland on the port, including the city of Dublin. I am pretty sure they won’t disembark, but she’ll get a glimpse. And since she wasn’t along when her older brother and sister and I went to Scotland, I am glad she’ll get this glimpse of the land of my ancestors.

Of course, she has a glass of wine in her hand in most pictures, but she also has apparently ordered hake again, this in a lovely presentation on a bed of vegetables. Since she likes it so well, I checked Central Market, but when you search for hake all kinds of weird things come up, like baking powder and a plant-based protein chocolate shake. I love shopping at Central Market, but their website frustrates me.

Hake with vegetables

Meanwhile back at home, I’m busy planning menus of things that Central Market does carry, as opposed to hake. Today Christian fixed a pot roast with carrots, onion, potatoes, and onion soup. Delicious, and a good thing to have when Jordan’s out of town because she would say it’s heavy. I’m going to make a shopping list for coronation chicken salad and old-fashioned pea salad for Saturday—I presume there will be coronation reruns Saturday night.

So tonight I’ll decide what to cook for three other nights, so that we have supper the first night Jordan’s home. She definitely won’t want to run to the grocery store that first day back. Menu planning is one of the great pleasures of my life and the reason I cancelled the Home Fresh order that Jamie so sweetly gave me. Jordan forwarded an email, apparently unrelated to Jamie’s gift, that said she had somehow been awarded eighteen free meals. We jointly agreed not to claim them.

Meanwhile, it was a beautiful day in Fort Worth—sunny and about eighty degrees. Subie and Phil came for happy hour, and we sat on the patio. Sophie overcame her bad manners of the last time they were here and was sweet and docile, except for a couple of barking periods. Subie and I agreed she likes for us to be outside. Christian came home in time to join us and recounted his trip to San Miguel, where Subie and Phil visited a number of years ago.

We also touched on politics, so here’s my two cents for the day: If you live in Fort Worth District 9, please vote for Elizabeth Beck. She’s been pro-active for neighborhoods and an active council member. I know nothing about her opponent, Pam Boggess, save for a slur kind of post on Facebook which I will not repeat. But Beck deserves re-election. No sense changing horses in mid-stream for no good reason. Maddie Parker appears to have endorse both candidates, which cancels out her endorsement.

My other political note for the day is that I am delighted that Colin Allred is going to take on Ted Cruz in the next senatorial elections. Allred has been a rising star in the Democratic caucus in the House and takes a risk by challenging the incumbent, but Beto O’Rourke came so close to beating Cruz last time that it seems possible to unseat the senator. I am cheering for Allred.

Otherwise, a workday. I am revising my Helen Corbitt manuscript, pulling 3,000 words out of 28,000 for an article. Today I went through seven chapters, choosing article material and fixing in my mind the theme of the article—how Corbitt and the Zodiac Room at Neiman’s changed Texans’ palate. I even think there may be a second article buried in that material, but I will have to find a food magazine that is an appropriate outlet. Fun to have a project.

So that’s my day. How was yours?

Eating leftovers and buckling down

 

An Easter family portrait
of the Fort Worth branch of the family

Easter, holy as it is to some of us, is one of those days that leave you with a hangover the next day. Not from too much bubbly or wine, not even from too much food, but simply from the exhilaration of the day—the often grand, overwhelming Easter story and the accompanying church services (ours was, with magnificent music and a thought-provoking sermon on the resurrection), the fellowship of family and friends, even just the big break from routine. So here I am this Monday, eating leftovers and trying to get back to work.

First the leftovers: who can complain about a devilled egg for breakfast, a sandwich of sourdough bread and salmon rillettes for lunch with a bit of black bean soup, and a scrambled egg with ranchero sauce and some spinach casserole for supper. Plus a bit of matzo crack, though I have cut off small pieces and avoided being piggsh about it. My leftover meals meant little cooking but lots of dish washing—worth every minute of it.

On my writing circle listserv this morning, we all posted our plans for the week—we do that every Monday, and I find it’s a great way to keep me focused. If I commit to something in the group, then I feel honor-bound to follow through. This morning, I noticed there was a strong sense of getting back to routine, starting something new, buckling down. The renewal of Easter carries over into so many areas of our lives.

For me, I committed to work once more on all the material I’ve found about Helen Corbitt, doyenne of the kitchens at Neiman Marcus, she who made dramatic changes in Texas food and nationally. As some may remember, I’ve been struggling with this project for more than a couple of years. I finally wrote a draft of a nonfiction book but came up way short of the suggested 75 K words the editor suggested. So I backed off, wrote an Irene mystery, and then went back to it. Rewriting got me another 10K words, still not anywhere enough.

For the last two or three weeks, with the forthcoming Irene pretty much in hand, I’ve been dodging Helen simply because I am not sure what to do with her story fascinating as I find it. Today I decided I have procrastinated long enough and there’s an idea I’ll never put to rest unless I try it: turn the story into a novel. So today I’ve been trying to think about that, trying to get her voice into my mind. My latest trick is to tell myself I may write a novella instead of a novel.

So tomorrow I hope to make notes on her character, developing a personality sketch. I already know she was a fiery read-head with a temper (she claimed gazpacho calmed her in temperamental moments and always kept a jug in the fridge), she was a devoted Roman Catholic all her life, she never married but, supposedly, was engaged three times, and she sometimes showed a wicked sense of humor. I know a sketchy bit about her childhood so I will have to decide between inventing it or working around it with allusions, which would make a shorter book.

See, by sharing this with you all, I have publicly committed to working on this, though I don’t promise that something publishable will come out of it.

And Easter the day may be over but Easter the celebration is not. My friend @Katie Sherrod points out that the Christian liturgical calendar calls the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost (May 28 this year) the Paschal period, a period of peace and hope and joy and acknowledgement that God loves each and everyone one of us. (Sometimes I think he must struggle to love a few who have turned from him, but that is  neither here nor there nor my business.) Katie reminds that we do not have to suffer, abstain or sacrifice to earn God’s love—it is all encompassing.

May you have dreams of joy tonight, and may I dream something significant about Helen Corbitt.

With the Easter boys, Christian and Lee Manzke, at brunch
See the corner of Jordans pretty place setting

Long day, cozy evening

 

It’s cozy in the cottage—the Christmas tree and its lights are at last gone, but my electric candles burn bravely on the coffee table, my tiny fake fireplace offers an orange glow. The bulb in the one lamp that burns night and day was once harsh white, but I have replaced it with one with a soft, rosy glow. With the overhead lights off, the feeling is one of coziness, as though I’m snug in my comfort place.

The family is out for the night. Jacob doing whatever sixteen-year-old boys do when they’re not doing homework—I don’t ask anymore—and his parents gone to the rodeo for Bulls Night Out. When my children were little and then later when the grands were little, going to the rodeo was a family annual big event. We’d tour the barns in the day and then go to the carnival grounds for the kids to ride the rides. I can still see Jacob bravely coming down a huge slide all alone, while the others had a parent with them. Dinner at the sort of mess hall place that Coulter’s Catering always offered, and then the rodeo. And late at night we’d take home sleepy children.

I loved those days, but somewhere along the way I lost my taste for rodeo. First it was the bull riding. I heard one too many stories about young men killed or permanently disabled by riding a bull, and I just flat did not want to see it. With the rest of the family happily in their bleacher seats, I’d slip out and wait in the concourse. But that aversion to bull riding gradually spread and became an aversion to all the rodeo contests, while I decided the inter-act entertainment wasn’t really that entertaining. By then, the family schedules were too busy for them to come to Fort Worth for the weekend, and the tradition sort of fell apart.

But not for Christian and Jordan—Christian often entertains clients at the rodeo, and Jordan goes with him some of the time.

For me, it’s been a long day of intense work on my Helen Corbitt manuscript. I am re-reading, chapter by chapter, looking for errors and places to expand. I’m actually enjoying the process a great deal, and I hope the enthusiasm continues. Last night, working late into the night, I uncovered the names, birth and death dates of her parents, and death date and lifetime residence of her only brother. The State of New York has an odd way of classifying communities according to the governmental body that administers social services—so they have hamlets, villages, towns, etc. I discovered that some of the places the Corbitt family lived were unincorporated hamlets within villages or towns, so that accounts for confusing information about that town they were in. I am now up to a chapter that moves temporarily away from Helen to the food trends of the fifties and sixties—material I find fascinating, because I still like to cook those dishes.

I’ve also been collecting trivia as I go through the day. This morning, a banner on the TV screen alerted me that the TODAY show was featuring dinners with five simple ingredients. I was all prepared to be excited, but the first meal began with a ribeye steak. Well, shoot! I could cook five-ingredient gourmet meals every night of the week if my budget allowed for ribeye steaks for four. As it is, I ordered cube steak for four today and was blown away by the price. Hesitated, but finally purchased it. Central Market disappointed however by sending me phyllo for puff pastry—I do not want to mess with buttering layers of phyllo dough—and a huge Napa cabbage instead of bok choy. I’ll split the cabbage with a friend.

When I wrote a few days ago about the Missouri Legislature passing a bill requiring women to wear long sleeves and blazers or cardigans or some other kind of second layers, a friend in Missouri wrote that he was quite sure it wouldn’t pass. His senator was, he said, doing a good job of controlling the extreme right. Oops! They passed it buried in their rules bill. It’s an affront to women and an early step toward the kind of authoritarian control of women that is being so bravely confronted in Iran.

For cozy mystery readers, another outrageous note: I saw a mystery with an intriguing title: Of Mushrooms and Matrimony, featuring sleuth Tish Tarragon. Okay, the sleuth’s name is a bit too clever, but I thought I’d order sample pages—until I saw that the Kindle version of the book is $25.00. What is that author thinking?

Finally, my favorite online columnist wrote last night that it was a quiet day and she was going to sign off without a column in order to gather strength for whatever is coming. That was the way I felt last night too and also tonight, so I’m signing off. These dedicated workdays don’t provide a lot to chat about. Know that when I don’t post, I miss talking to you.

 

Writing in my sleep

 

Texas caviar

“I do not like to write — I like to have written.” That oft-quoted saying has been attributed to everyone from Mark Twain (who I always thought really did say it) to, gulp, Gloria Steinem—really? Well, I have a new twist on it: I do not like to write—but I like thinking about writing.

I can write wonderful things as I lie in bed waiting for sleep or sit at my desk, staring vacantly out at the garden, now just beginning to green up for spring. Plots hold together, characters are clever and interesting, never hackeneyd, their dialog brilliant and original. Things work out so well.

But put me at my computer and tell me it’s work time, and I become Erma Bombeck all over again. I’d rather scrub floors or clean the bathroom than face what for Erma was a blank sheet of paper in her typewriter and what for me is a blank computer screen. All rational thought flees, and I am back to staring out the window wondering how such and such worked so perfectly not two hours ago.

Case in point: I am as some of you may know working on a possible project about Helen Corbitt, doyenne of food service at Neiman Marcus or, as Mr. Stanley Marcus called her, the Balenciaga of food. Her cookbooks are legendary and a compilation published in 2000 gives a brief biography of her. But no one has ever done a real biography, and her archive is readily available though, unfortunately, not in any form that allows me virtual access. Still, I can’t seem to let go of the notion that I should write about her. So she fills a lot of “thinking” and “imagining” hours for me.

I began an introduction which would, I hoped, serve as a road map for a book. But then other projects called me away for almost two weeks, time I spent thinking about two paragraphs that I knew needed to be included. I must have written those paragraphs in my mind a dozen times. So today, I sat down to actually write them. Found I’d put bare hints of them in the text but not done them justice. So now I have to rethink the whole thing. And some people wonder why I go to bed so early!

If you’ve never eaten lunch at a Neiman’s restaurant—I think there is only one now and it’s on the edge of bankruptcy, if not declared—it’s worth a trip to Dallas. No matter what you order, your meal begins with a demitasse of chicken consommé seasoned exactly right with a tiny touch of bite to it and a warm popover with strawberry butter. The one time years ago I tried to make the butter I ended up with little globules of golden butter floating in strawberry jam—not at all like what’s served at Neiman’s. But that custom traces back to Corbitt as does a dish she famously invented when challenged to present a banquet using only Texas produce. She served what we now call Texas caviar: black-eyed peas seasoned with green onions, cilantro, chiles, tomatoes, and garlic and coated with a dressing of olive oil, lime juice, and cumin. Served chilled with corn chips for dipping. Over the years others have added everything from corn to black beans, but Corbitt's purist version had only the peas.

More about Helen another time. I’m fascinated by her cooking and her free-wheeling personality. So I guess I’ll keep writing in my sleep, though this week my project is to do more research on her career in Texas. She was not a native, but neither am I, so I’ll forgive her that.

Spending the day with a cook

Helen Corbitt

Another dull day but with no rain. Getting tired of this. But today I spent much of the day with Helen Corbitt, which was a delight. You probably have to be a Texan and of a certain age to remember Helen. From 1955 until the late sixties, she was in charge of food service at Neiman Marcus. Mr. Stanley once called her the Balenciaga of food. Coming from the east, with some Texas detours, she taught us Texans many things, like how to cook vegetables al dente and how to avoid canned fruit cocktail.

Corbitt, a graduate of Skidmore College, had an established career in food service before she affiliated with Neiman Marcus.  She came to Texas, reluctantly (“Who the hell wants to go to Texas?”) in the early 1940s to accept a position with the University of Texas. She had been a hospital dietitian in Newark and New York, but she was bored. As the U.S. came out of the Depression, the Texas offer was the only one she got. She came to Austin to teach quantity cooking and restaurant management. In connection wit the latter, she ran the University Tea Room, a laboratory for her students.

Restless, she moved on to the Houston Country Club for a stay of several years that ended only when the club hit hard times. Then she moved, briefly, to Joske’s department store, the only job from which she was fired because her food service didn’t show a profit. Helen Corbitt was concerned with quality not cost, and no kitchen she ran ever showed a profit. After a short spell as an independent caterer and food consultant, she was called to manage food service at the Driskell Hotel in Austin.

Stanley Marcus, knowing her reputation, courted her for eight years before she agreed to move to Dallas and take over the Neiman Marcus food service. But it was there that she established her reputation. She served high quality food to stars and celebrities, such as Zsa Zsa Gabor, Princess Margaret, and the Duke of Windsor but also to the middle-class housewife who was Stanley Marcus’ most important customer.

Known for her temper, Corbitt did not allow Marcus into her kitchen without an invitation. She once made opera diva Maria Callas and a party of thirty go to the end of the line because they were late for their reservation. And another time, she fired the entire kitchen crew, only to realize she needed them to serve a meal. She called security and had them blocked from leaving the store.

We have Corbitt to thank for several dishes—Texas caviar, which she invented when challenged to come up with a gourmet menu using native Texas foods; chicken bouillon which is still served daily in Nieman’s restaurants; the Duke of Windsor sandwich, a concoction of pineapple, cheddar, turkey or chicken, and chutney.

Corbitt retired from Neiman’s to write cookbooks and travel the world, collecting recipes and teaching and lecturing. She was the author of several cookbooks—from Helen Corbitt’s Cookbook to Helen Corbitt Cooks for Looks, written after her doctor advised her to lose weight. She was a much sought-after speaker, sprinkling her talks about food with humor and practical advice. And she continued to teach. One of her most unusual classes was one she taught in her own apartment for a select group of Dallas businessmen. Corbitt proved that Texas men wanted more than steak and a baked potato.

Helen Corbitt died in 1978 of cancer. She had never married.

Maybe because I’m fascinated by “foodie” stuff these days, but I am really interested in this woman’s career and contributions to our Texas cuisine. I was working today on a entry for her in the online Handbook of Texas.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Escaping into Helen Corbitt’s life

Helen Corbitt

Sometimes writing is a great way to escape. I had nary a thought about pandemics or protests today as I wrote a short piece about Helen Corbitt. She is known as the doyenne of food service at Neiman Marcus. You have to be of a certain age to remember her. She was at Neiman’s when I moved to Texas in the early 1960s, but I was young and green, and Neiman’s was way beyond my budget. Besides I hadn’t yet developed my fascination with all things culinary. Today she is one of my heroes.

Born in upper New York and educated at Skidmore College, Corbitt worked as a hospital dietitian in Newark and New York in the late 1920s. But she was bored. A job hunt was unfruitful until she got an offer from the University of Texas at Austin. Her initial response was, “Who the hell wants to go to Texas?”

She went, taught quantity cooking and restaurant management and ran the University Tea Room, a laboratory school for her students and probably where she developed some of her signature recipes, such as chicken bouillon and popovers with strawberry butter. Eat lunch at Neiman’s today, and you will be served a complimentary demitasse of bouillon and the popover with butter.

The Houston Country Club hired her away from UT, but she didn’t unpack her bags. Homesick, she only wanted to earn enough to go back east. But six months later, she unpacked. She loved cooking fine food for appreciative members of the club. When the club met financial difficulties in wartime, she moved to Joske’s department store—only job she was ever fired from. She and management disagreed.

Back to Austin, where she managed food service at the Driskell, but in 1955 she finally accepted Stanley Marcus’ offer—he’d been calling her for eight years. Like Marcus, she believed in pleasing the most discriminating customer. But she was a spitfire. Marcus liked to wander unannounced into various departments in his store. When he entered the kitchen, she demanded, “Stanley, did I invite you here? No? Please leave and come back when I do.” She once fired her entire crew, only to desperately retrieve them when she realized she had customers to feed. And  when Maria Callas was late for a reservation for thirty people, she made them all stand at the back of the line.

Corbitt retired from Neiman’s in 1955 and went on to a career teaching, lecturing, and writing. She was the author of several cookbooks. The first, Helen Corbitt’s Cookbook, was an enormous success. If you can find a vintage copy today, it’s a treasure—full of sixties food and things we miss today, like jellied salads. Helen Corbitt Cooks for Looks came about because her doctor advised her to lose weight. One of her most interesting projects was to teach a class for select Dallas businessmen. They met in her apartment, kept notebooks, and relished the class. She always said she proved that Texas men wanted more than steak and potatoes.

Corbitt had several signature dishes. Among them, chicken salad with white grapes and Texas caviar. She invented the latter when she had only been in Texas two weeks and was told to prepare a convention banquet using only Texas products. After uttering a profanity, she produced a superb meal. Texas caviar is black-eyed peas in a dressing of garlic, onion, oil, and vinegar. You’ve probably eaten it. Ladybird Johnson particularly loved her flower pot cakes.

Helen Corbitt transformed the way Texans looked at food. Her complaints when she got here were that salads were dull and over-dressed and vegetables where overcooked. She waged what she called the al dente wars, fighting for crisp, fresh vegetables. Her influence is long-lasting, and yet she is unfortunately overlooked in the long list of American chefs. Search out her books, read about this sassy woman, and try to have as much fun as I did today.