A WESTERN BOOK COVER FOR TODAY
AUDREY X 4
HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD
. . . in the 1950s.
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SOME THOUGHTS ON RED BEANS AND RICE
. . . of a philosophical nature.
Red beans and rice was an invention of Creole chefs in the kitchens of The French Quarter in New Orleans, but its enduring popularity and ubiquity in Louisiana are due to the fact that it’s basically a dish for poor folks — a way of adding flavor and spice to the timeless staples of beans and rice.
Variations on red beans and rice can be found all over the Caribbean and Latin America. What distinguish the New Orleans variant are the local spicy sausages and the cured pork of one sort or another.
The meats are a kind of lagniappe — treats that enhance the simplicity of beans and rice. If you’re not poor, there’s a tendency to think that even more meat will make the dish even better. If you’re delighted, when eating a traditional plate of red beans and rice, to get a bit of sausage or ham in a forkful of the beans, then it stands to reason that getting several bits of sausage or ham in a forkful will delight you even more.
This is true, as I have learned from experience, but only up to a point, as I have also learned from experience. If you get to the point where the beans start to seem like an afterthought, just garnish for a meat stew, you have gone too far. The beans and rice have to carry the freight of the dish, or it’s not really red beans and rice as it’s eaten in New Orleans.
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THE COVER
This is the final version of the cover I’ve chosen for my new collection of Christmas tales set in the West.
The image is a detail from a painting by Frederic Remington called The Fall Of the Cowboy. The full painting shows a dismounted cowboy opening a gate in a barbed-wire fence for himself and the mounted cowboy you see. It was meant to suggest the fencing in of the open range, which didn’t do away with the cowboy but changed the nature of his trade,
It dates from 1895, when the culture at large was beginning to think about the passing of the Old West.
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A STORY ILLUSTRATION FOR TODAY
GIRL WITH NOTEBOOK
With thanks to Paul Pearson.
COWGIRL
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STEAMBOAT
. . . on the Ohio River around 1910.
With thanks to Paul Pearson.
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AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
A PULP PAPERBACK COVER FOR TODAY
And don’t kid yourselves, folks — it’s still happening!
A WATTEAU FOR TODAY
Columbine and Harlequin.
With thanks to Tristan Forward.
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MY WESTERN MUSE
I’ve tried, really tried, to finish Blowing Cool, the sequel to my neo-noir thriller Bloodbath. I’ll get a little momentum going, then lose it. I have another novel or novella in the works called Hurricane, about the great Florida hurricane of 1935. That got off to a terrific start, then hit a wall, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on.
But the West . . . I always come back to the West, and the Western landscape always gets my storyteller’s imagination going.
Recently I got the idea to do a collection of Western short stories centering around Christmas. A storyline popped into my mind, I started work on it and couldn’t stop. And before I finished that first story a second one popped into my mind. Now I’m working on the sixth and last tale in the series.
They’ll be available on Amazon soon, in plenty of time for Christmas gift giving!
My muse is just a Western gal, I guess.
[The painting “Snow Aspens” is by Alexander Volkov — prints are available here.]
THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC
Even Pat Boone can’t totally ruin this song, though he gives it a good old college try . . .