Gloomy Day in Oklahoma

It's a gloomy day in Oklahoma, Edmond in the eye of a large, regional storm system. The local weather jocks predict we could get as much as three inches of rain. Hope so! Oklahoma is still in the midst of a drought that's going on four years now. It's raining, but Oklahoma is still burning. Oh, travel over to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Apple IBooks and download a free copy of Big Easy.

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Bourbon Street Bare - Hurricane Isaac Invades Louisiana



Bourbon Street Bare

Hurricane Isaac visits Louisiana almost seven years, to the day, after Katrina. Unlike the monster hurricane that struck New Orleans in 2005, Isaac is only a Category One, likely bringing lots of rain, storm surge, and flooding, but not the tremendous wind speeds of Katrina. Most of the residents of New Orleans stayed home to ride out the storm. Good luck, Big Easy!

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A Hot Day in April

As I started my walk this evening, dark clouds floated overhead, humidity making it feel like a summer day. Late April, the temperature reached 95 degrees yesterday and almost as hot today. It didn’t matter because my mind and body were basking in the feeling of accomplishment.


My New Orleans thriller, City of Spirits went live last night on Amazon, leaving me happy and sad; happy the book is finally completed but sad to leave the fictional world and characters behind. ‘Writer’s depression’ has yet to set in as I pen these paragraphs. Doesn’t matter because I know it will. This time I’m ready for it.

As I walked this evening, I mentally outlined the first chapters of a new book. Will it ultimately end up as I envision it? Probably not. Stories have a life of their own, usually becoming something you least expect. Like 95 degrees in April.

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Amazon/Eric's Page

New French Quarter Murder Mystery

City of Spirits front cover

It's Mardi Gras in the Big Easy and two boats have sunk in the main channel of the Mississippi River, denying river passage both in and out of New Orleans. When detective Tony Nicosia's partner is stabbed during a Carnival parade, the Chief assigns him a new partner with the unlikely name of Marlon Bando.


To make matters worse, Tony's wife Lil is demanding he retire; a woman named Venus who is half his age is making a serious play for him; and a killer is on the loose. French Quarter sleuth Wyatt Thomas has problems of his own: his ex-wife's wake; a new client that wants proof that he isn't a passeblanc; beautiful twin sisters named Desire and Dauphine; and a voodoo curse likely cast by Marie Laveau herself. Get ready for a ride!

If you like New Orleans, check out the sequel to Big Easy, the original French Quarter murder mystery by Louisiana mystery writer Eric Wilder.

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Mardi Gras Beads

About Mardi Gras Beads

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City Park, New Orleans Pictures

City Park Ave. Sign

My brother-in-law Dennis Seals took these pics of City Park on a recent trip to New Orleans.

Eric'sWeb 

City Park Entrance

City Park Fountain

Dueling Oaks

Mossy Oak

Mama Mulate's Backyard

Mama Mulate lives in a lower-middle class neighborhood in New Orleans, not far from the Mississippi River. A jungle of garden plants covers her front porch, banana palms and dieffenbachia, melding with the fragrance of bougainvilleas draping from the ceiling in wicker baskets.

Pink hibiscus blossoms and purple morning glories cram the well-tended beds beside the small porch, a small vegetable garden growing on the side of the house. They only provide a clue as to what is behind the ten-foot stockade fence surrounding Mama’s house.

When you walk out the back door, you find yourself on a multi-tiered redwood deck that encompasses a thousand, or more, square feet. Wind chimes, Japanese lanterns and voodoo vevers hang from the rafters over the covered portion of the deck.

Mama’s backyard is a landscaped work of art. Cobbled paths pass pools of koi, rock and water hyacinth. Mirlitons and moonflowers climb the back fence. She grows vegetables and herbs in her raised beds.

A Tulane University English professor, Mama often hosts poetry and book readings in her backyard, her students enthralled by the music of Billie Holiday, piped from hidden speakers. A botanist, herbalist, practitioner of Vodoun, and one wonderful Creole cook, no one ever leaves hungry, either physically or spiritually.

Eric'sWeb

Mama Mulate's Creole Catfish Bites - a weekend recipe

Mama Mulate has a natural connection with her Tulane English students, often hosting poetry readings and literary events at her home in urban New Orleans. When she does, she always provides home cooked delicacies such as her famous Creole catfish bites. Bite into one yourself and you’ll see (and taste) why they’re famous.

Ingredients
 • 1 pound catfish fillets, poached
• 6 Tbsp. butter
• ¾ cup flour
• 2 cups milk
• ½ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. black pepper
• ½ tsp. dry mustard
• ½ tsp. Jamaican allspice, ground
• 1 ½ cups bell pepper, finely chopped
• ½ cup green onions, finely chopped
• ½ tsp. Tabasco
• 1 ½ cups bread crumbs, fresh, plus more for coating Bites
• Vegetable oil for sautéing

Directions
 Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. Add the flour, stirring constantly (2 to 3 minutes). Add the milk slowly, continuing to stir until the cream sauce is thick (10 to 12 minutes). Add salt, pepper, mustard, and allspice, mixing well. Flake the catfish fillets into a bowl. Add the cream sauce and the remaining ingredients, mixing thoroughly. Form bite-sized balls with the fish mixture, coating them with more bread crumbs. In about ½ inch of vegetable oil, gently sauté the bites in a heavy skillet, until they are browned.

Eric'sWeb

Vieux Carre Cocktail - a recipe

Vieux Carré Cocktail

If you’re a writer, don’t move to New Orleans and expect to pen the “Great American Novel.” You’ll probably wind up spending much of your time visiting the hundreds of bars, drinking wonderful cocktails, schmoozing with interesting locals and passing out in all your clothes before you ever keyboard a single word. A scene from my new book-in-progress, City of Spirits, takes place in the Carousel Lounge, located in the Monteleone Hotel on Royal Street, in the French Quarter. Here is a recipe for a drink supposedly invented there. Hey, I don’t write in New Orleans, but I’ve lost a few brain cells sitting at the revolving bar in the Carousel Lounge. And I loved every minute of it.

Ingredients

· ¾ oz Cognac
· ¾ oz rye whiskey
· ¾ oz sweet vermouth
· ¼ oz Benedictine
· dash Peychaud's Bitters
· dash Angostura Bitters

Directions

Stir and strain over rocks, lemon twist garnish

Eric’sWeb

Bertram Picou's Red Beans and Rice - a weekend recipe

French Quarter bartender Bertram Picou is a recurring character in my French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans. After appearing in Big Easy, he's developed a life of his own that transcends fiction. Like many Southerners, Bertram served in the Army and did his basic training at Fort Polk in Leesville, Louisiana. The Fort is the subject of Tigerland, a gritty but powerful movie starring Colin Farrell. It’s probably the best movie Farrell ever did and you might want to check it out. Anyway, the place was a hell hole and some say the chances of getting killed or wounded were greater there than in Vietnam.

Rutted dirt roads, tracts of heavily forested land that had never seen a chainsaw, miles of seemingly endless rifle ranges, and swamps so murky and misty that they looked like the backdrop of a Lon Chaney horror film, comprised Fort Polk. Alligators, armadillos, water moccasins and frightened, pissed-off young G.I.’s, soon to be bound for Vietnam, populated the musty old Fort where fever and meningitis were everyday occurrences.

And it was hot and humid! The World War II-vintage barracks had no air conditioning in the summer and little insulation in the winter. A soldier’s day started at 4:30 AM with thirty minutes of physical training before breakfast. This was followed by more PT, a one to seven-mile hike to the rifle range, orientation, target practice, a one to seven-mile hike back to the barracks, more PT, then bed. Bertram lost forty-six pounds in six weeks at Fort Polk.

Some of the drill sergeants were mean, some practically psychotic. Nice wasn’t in their vocabulary. Bertram is the personification of the term laid-back, but two words can still evoke memories of distress and instantly raise his blood pressure and heart rate. Those two words — grease trap! If you ever spent any time in the Army, you probably know what I mean.

Food in the mess halls was simple but filling. All you could eat in fifteen minutes or so. They served red beans in abundance and rice. The problem was, not together. Army regulation said you can’t have two starches on one plate. Good idea for the Army, bad idea for Bertram Picou who thinks RB&R should be part of the Government’s food pyramid (or whatever shape it is now!)

Bertram breathed a large sigh of relief when he finally got out of the Army. He cooks RB&R almost every day at his bar on Chartres Street in New Orleans French Quarter and here is his personal recipe.

Bertram's Red Beans and Rice

1 ½ lbs. dry red beans

2 stalks celery, chopped

3 cloves garlic, crushed

½ green pepper, diced

1 red onion, sliced

½ tbsp. oil

10 c. water

1 veg. bouillon cube

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 ½ c. rice

3 c. water for rice

Soak beans overnight. Saute garlic, red onion, green pepper, celery in oil in large pot. Add 10 cups of water, vegetable bouillon cube, and beans. Let cook on medium flame until soft. Cook rice separately. When rice is done, serve topped with red beans.

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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.