Muscadine Memories

I have fond memories of the vacant lot next to my parent’s house in northwest Louisiana. The remains of an old fence bordered our yard and the adjacent lot, and a thick muscadine vine covered much of the fence. I don’t recall the time of year the vine bore fruit. I do remember vividly my brother and me picking the thick-skinned berries for my mother, eating one of every five that we collected.

We didn’t worry about washing pesticides off the muscadines before we ate them because there were no pesticides at the time – except for DDT, which we didn’t know would hurt us. The purple skin was too sour to eat so you simply popped open the fruit and ate the pulp. Less the seeds of course.

A blackberry bush grew nearby and we collected and sampled them when they were ripe. My mother made jam and jelly with all the various berries my brother and I gathered - jam and jelly devoid of preservatives. The vines and bushes provided a bit of shelter from hot Louisiana sun – shelter for critters such as grass snakes, stinkbugs and stinging scorpions. We collected them as well.

There’s now a new fence between my parent’s old house and the once-vacant lot next door. Gone are the muscadines and blackberries, replaced by grass, brick and concrete - at least for the rest of the world to see. In my memories, muscadines still grow there, their thick purple skin still as sour as their inside's are sweet. There they'll remain until the last ashes of my life waft away like wispy Louisiana clouds racing from the sun.

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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric grew up listening to his grandmothers' tales of politics, corruption and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma, and continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent, Please check out his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages, and his website.

Cherokee Hominy Casserole - a recipe

Debra (Debbie) Dawson is an Oklahoma City teacher at North Highlands and she worked with Marilyn when she was running the reading lab there. Marilyn made this dish New Years Day and I can attest that it is wonderful. I don’t know if Debbie is a Cherokee, but almost everyone in Oklahoma is, at least to some extent.

3 c. hominy, drained
1 can cream of celery soup
8 oz. sour cream
½ c. onion, chopped
4 oz. green chiles, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
8 oz. Monterey jack cheese

Mix all ingredients well in casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Enjoy.

Eric's Website

Digging Up the Past

In the early days of oil exploration, explorers had many reasons for drilling a well at a certain location. If someone found oil, the leases around that well would suddenly become more valuable and other operators would try to drill as close as they could to a producing well.

Some companies still practice this technique of closology rather than geology. During the seventies and eighties Texas Oil and Gas Corp. would sidle up as close as legally possible to a producing well, a practice called corner shooting. TXO earned a reputation as corner-shooting kings. A reputation that was not always good.

Before the days of seismology and other geophysical exploration techniques operators would often drilled near an oil seep, or on the crest of a hill. Harry Sinclair, the founder of Sinclair oil was very superstitious and liked to drill near cemeteries. He had a lot of luck finding oil that way.

Cities Service Oil was the first company to hire geologists to try finding oil. Using surface mapping techniques, this band of geologists found literally millions of barrels of oil. This includes the El Dorado, the largest oil field in Kansas, and the Oklahoma City Field, the largest oil field in Oklahoma and at one time the world.

When I began working as an exploration geologist for Cities Service in the 70’s the company had many maps of surface features that they had never gotten around to drilling. They also still had a surface geologist that worked in Tulsa. Ernie Tisdale was a wonderful man and geologist but a throwback to an earlier period of exploration.

I was working Kansas at the time, along with another geologist named Dave Forth. While digging through a stack of old maps one day we came across an undrilled surface structure in Elk County, Kansas. Management decided that Ernie, Dave and I would drive to Kansas and check out the surface structure in person.

Elk is a rural county in far southeastern Kansas. We spent the night in Elk City in an old wooden, two-story hotel. While eating at a local cafe, Ernie recounted a story about two Cities Service “lease hounds” that used to work the area.

The geological crews and leasing crews all stayed in the same rustic hotel as the one we were staying in that night. Yes, the building was very old with no fire escape from the second floor, only a rope outside every window that extended to the ground below. The two landmen, I will call them Ted and Joe because I cannot remember their real names, were partners but different as proverbial night and day. Ted was quiet, a teetotaler and a minder of his own business. Joe was anything but.

Joe was also quite the practical joker and Ted the usual butt of his jokes. He told Ted that the owner had explained how afraid of fire he was and that the old wooden building was in constant danger of burning. Later, long after Ted had retired for the night, Joe banged on his door.

“Get the hell out. The stairwell is on fire. Climb out the window or you’ll be burned alive.”

Much to the glee of his partner Joe Ted shimmied down the rope with nothing on but his skivvies. Joe, inebriated by this time, met Ted at the front door, still rolling with laughter.
That night I slept lightly, waiting for someone to bang on my door. Thankfully, neither Ernie nor Dave was a jokester like Joe had been.

We spent the next day checking out the undrilled surface feature. The structure was there all right, just as mapped in the 1920’s. Maybe a million barrels of untapped oil. We proposed a well and Cities bought leases and agreed to drill the structure. Alas, Cities never drilled the prospect and it remains undrilled to this day. The map is probably locked away somewhere in a warehouse in California.

I am thankful for experiencing at least some of the excitement early wildcatters must have felt when deciding to drill a well at a particular location. Wildcatters such as Frank Phillips and Harry Sinclair found large fields, amassed untold fortunes and are now famous. Many forgotten explorers like Ernie, Ted and Joe played important roles, finding the oil that made this nation what it is today.

Eric's Website

Sooner Stew - a weekend recipe

I may be prejudiced, but the Oklahoman is my favorite newspaper. I rarely miss reading it, and then only when I'm out of town and can't find a copy. The paper is a great source of wonderful regional recipes and this one appeared just in time for the national college football championship game between OU and the University of Florida. I haven't tried it yet but I don't think that I will be disappointed when I do.

SOONER STEW

3 pounds chuck eye steak or roast, well-trimmed
Salt and pepper
¼ cup flour, divided in half (half to sprinkle meat and half for thickening stew)
3 tablespoons canola oil (reserve half for second saute)
2 cups chopped onion
2½ cups chopped red sweet pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup red wine (zinfandel or Chianti work well)
1 (14.3 ounce) can chopped or petite diced tomatoes
1½ cup carrots sliced ¼-inch thick
1½ cups red potatoes diced ¾-inch, scrubbed, skin left intact with blemishes and eyes removed
3 to 4 cups chicken broth or beef stock
12 ounces frozen whole green beans, thawed

→Cut meat into large bite-size chunks and sprinkle with salt and pepper, dusting lightly with flour. Heat oil in the bottom of a large Dutch oven or stew pot. Brown meat in batches. Do not overcrowd meat for best results.

→Prepare onions, garlic and peppers. Add additional oil if necessary and saute, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula. As onions and peppers soften and become translucent, incorporate flour, stirring thoroughly.

→Deglaze mixture with wine, stirring to loosen any remaining drippings. Add meat and canned tomatoes, stirring well. Cover and allow mixture to simmer for 30 minutes. Prepare carrots and potatoes, and stir into the mix along with at least 3 cups of broth or stock. Cover and simmer over low heat for 1 hour. Stir in green beans. Serve hot with thick slices of crusty bread and olive oil for dipping.

→Cook’s notes: It is essential to pay careful attention to browning the meat, being sure all sides are browned. This is the foundation for flavoring the stew. It takes about 2½ hours to make this stew, so get it started before the game. I do not recommend serving this stew with Gatorade.

Serves 6 to 10 depending on appetites and scores.

→Source: Sherrel Jones, The Oklahoman

Eric's Website

Whiskey Sour Punch

Here is a party drink that I know I could get into.

2 quarts orange juice
12 ounces maraschino cherries
4 ½ cups sugar
2 ½ cups water
6 quarts bourbon
6 pints lemon juice
6 oranges, sliced
6 lemons, sliced
Dash of Angostura bitters

Pour orange juice into two ring molds, arrange half the cherries in each, and freeze. Make simple syrup by boiling water and sugar 5 minutes. Cool; combine with remaining ingredients in large containers and chill 24 hours or overnight. Pour over frozen mold in punch bowl. Serve in punch cups over crushed ice.

Eric's Website