Mama's Gumbo

Those that have read any of my New Orleans short stories know that Bertram Picou is the owner of an eclectic little bar on Chartres Street, in the French Quarter. He cooks some of the world’s best gumbo and always has a pot simmering in back for his regular customers.

Everyone in New Orleans makes gumbo, some tasting better than others. The best gumbo is like ambrosia, a gift from heaven itself. It’s now made all over the world but one thing is sure. You’ll never find better gumbo anywhere in the world that tastes as good as the worst gumbo from New Orleans.

Some say that Bertram’s gumbo is the best in the Big Easy. Don’t believe me? Next time you’re in the French Quarter, stop by his place and give it a try. The bar’s a little hard to find, but keep looking. Below is Bertram’s recipe, told in his own words.

Mama's Gumbo
"First thing is make the roux. Pour some oil in your big cast iron skillet and put it on the fire, medium heat. Add some flour and start stirring. Whatever you do, don’t leave the stove, even to chase Ol’ Shep, until the roux cooks to a pleasing shade of brown, maybe a little darker if you’re taste buds are more Cajun than most. Be careful now. Don’t burn that roux cause it’s the most important part of the gumbo! If it starts to smoke and curdle up, you done screwed up! Throw it out and start over.

Once you got the roux done, its time to make the gumbo. My Mama throws in crawfish, shrimp, chicken, sausage, squirrel, deer, or even fish. "Whatever floats your boat," she used to say.
Fill up your big stock pot with water and set it on the stove. Get it to boiling then add the roux. Mama always uses four tablespoons, more or less, depending on the weather, how dark she had let it cook, and how she feels that particular day. Good cooks don’t read recipes. They just sense how something ought to taste. However many tablespoons she used, her gumbo always tasted damn good!

Keep stirring until the roux and water are mixed, then add a couple of chopped onions, a chopped bell pepper, six minced garlic cloves and your chicken, seafood, or whatever. This is where it gets tricky. You need to add salt, cayenne and black pepper and this must be done to taste. Using too much, or not enough, can make or break the gumbo and, unfortunately, practice is the only way to learn how. You’ll have to do this yourself cause Mama can’t go to everyone’s house.

Cook the gumbo on a medium hot flame and keep stirring until everything starts getting tender. Don’t put a lid on the pot.

Finally, boil up your rice to perfection (just about the hardest thing in the world to get right, but that’s another story). Add parsley and scallions to the gumbo, and, if you like, a little file, then ladle it on the rice and enjoy!"

Fiction South

Dust Ghost of Coldwater Kansas - a short story

It's great seeing all the new stories about the filming of the original movie The Exorcist. The film was a masterpiece from the beginning to the climactic final scene. I still get tingly when I hear the song Tubular Bells. In the 70s, I saw my own apparition in the badlands of southwest Kansas.

Kansas Dust Ghost

I was a new geologist for Cities Service Oil Company in 1973 when the movie The Exorcist came out. The film was adapted from the novel of the same name. Always an avid reader, I'd read it before the movie came out. It was one of the most riveting and suspenseful books I can remember. I couldn’t put it down and finished it in one sitting. Needless to say, I was anxious to see how the movie compared with the novel.

My first wife, Gail, and I saw the movie at the Shepherd Mall in Oklahoma City, and the theater was packed. The cinema both fascinated and repulsed the many theater-goers watching it. So intense were some of the scenes (at least compared to every other movie before 1973) that many of the patrons tossed their own cookies when Linda Blair’s head began rotating on her neck, and she began spitting green goo at the priest attempting to exorcise her demon.

I didn’t throw up, but the young man sitting beside me did – right on my shoe, I kid you not! The movie stopped briefly while unhappy attendants with mops and pails cleaned up the mess. I am not making this up! Anyway, I left Oklahoma City the following day to watch a drilling oil well in Coldwater, Kansas. Yes, there is a Coldwater, Kansas, and I’m not making that up, either.

Located in southwest Kansas, Coldwater was, and still is, a tiny town – only 792 people living there in 2000. I got a room in a four-room motel, stowed my suitcase, and drove to the Wildcat about twelve miles away.

Well-site work in Kansas is challenging. There are so many potentially productive formations up and down the hole that leaving the location for very long is impossible. We had a small company trailer on site, and five days passed before I finally returned to my motel room. When drilling ceased for a time to test a zone, I drove to Coldwater for a much anticipated and needed rest. Before the night ended, my anticipation had turned to dread.

That night, I showered, changed clothes, and then ate a steak at the local café. The motel’s little black-and-white reception was poor, so I turned in early. There are few trees in southwest Kansas. When the wind blows, it tends to howl. No sooner than I turned off the lights, the door and windows began to rattle, then expand and contract like a human lung. Bright lights and neon filtered in through the curtains and cracks around the door. It was almost as if a ghastly presence was joining me inside.

Only a few days after seeing The Exorcist, my imagination began working overtime, playing cruel tricks on a sleep-deprived geologist. I am a Vietnam veteran, so I was not really frightened. Well, okay, a little bit. Dust blew through cracks in the door, fouling the air conditioning and reminding me of an angry apparition swirling around the room. Whatever it was, it didn’t harm me, and I finally fell asleep, probably from exhaustion.

The flashing lights, moaning wind, and veils of dust in my room could have been a ghost, or perhaps just my imagination whetted by the very realistic film I had recently viewed. As events would have it, that was the last night I spent in the Coldwater Motel, not by design or the dust ghost, but because that is how the drilling worked out.

Years have passed since I saw The Exorcist at the Shepherd Mall, and I have not returned to Coldwater, Kansas. It doesn’t matter because I will never forget The Exorcist or the dust ghost I saw and heard that night in the Coldwater Motel.

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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 authored the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans, the Paranormal Cowboy Series, and the Oyster Bay Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon author page. You might also like checking out his Facebook page.