ROUSES_MayJun2019_Magazine-Print

When it comes to cooking, like most Louisiana men, Dave does his share. This is a culture where men take pride in their kitchen skills. He takes care with food, especially when it’s to share. There’s al- ways a little something extra — breakfast isn’t just Grape-Nuts, it’s Grape-Nuts with warm milk and blackberries. Coffee comes with warm milk; iced tea is always garnished with fresh mint leaves. In recent novels, he’s as apt to make a tomato and avocado sandwich for his daughter Alafair as he is to get out the cast-iron skillet. He knows the life of the body, its needs and desires. And he occasion- ally succumbs to the desire for sweetness. Dessert is usually a bowl of ice cream and strawberries. A celebration can be as simple as a spearmint snowball. In one novel, he brings home a chocolate cake for dessert and cuts “a thick wet slice.” Can’t you taste it? That’s vintage Burke. The rituals centered around food provide comfort and stability in Dave’s crime-ridden world. After a tough day, he says, “I wanted to go home and eat a hot supper with my family and perhaps walk down Main Street with them in the twilight and have a dessert on the terrace behind Clementine’s restaurant. I wanted to have a normal life again.” His rough-and-tumble sidekick Clete Purcel is a great cook too, though readers worry about his cholesterol levels. He likes to start his day with “coffee and massive nutrients.” One “healthy” break- fast includes “four biscuits, scrambled eggs sprinkled with grated cheese, green onions, and bacon bits, a pork chop smothered in milk gravy, orange juice, a bowl of stewed tomatoes, and multiple cups of coffee.” When Clete is in residence at the New Iberia motor court, he brings the party with him, sets up his grill out front, and has a pork roast or a chicken cooking that he shares with anyone who stops by. There’s always plenty of cold beer in the cooler too — maybe a little too much. In his post-Katrina masterpiece, The Tin Roof Blowdown , Clete — when he can’t get his usual room — takes refuge with Robicheaux and his wife and daughter. Not wanting to cause anyone extra effort, he insists on bringing dinner. Here’s what that looks like: And motor over he did, at 6:00 p.m. sharp, with a bucket of Pop- eyes fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits and a big carton of fried oysters and dirty rice. He also brought a separate bag of paper plates, plastic forks and knives, paper napkins, and a six-pack of Dr Pepper. He went about setting the table while Molly and Alafair tried to hide their smiles. “Clete, we have plates and silverware,” I said. “No need to dirty things up,” he said. Molly shook her head behind his back to stop me from admonish- ing him. Alafair wasn’t as diplomatic. “You have any salad in there, Clete?” she said. “You bet,” he replied, and proudly lifted a quart of potato salad from the sack. You can always tell the villains in a Burke novel by their food choic- es. The unforgettable Chester Wimple, aka Smiley in The New Iberia Blues ,“ ate Ding Dongs for breakfast and Eskimo Pies and Buster Bars around the clock.” He even converses with a potential victim while eating a carton of ice cream. The dreadful Ronald Bledsoe is interrogated in the sheriff’s office while he eats four custard-filled doughnuts “as you would a hamburger, feeding the whole doughnut into his mouth, the yellow cream glistening on top of his nails.” In addition to being a chronicle of violence in American culture, this series is a long, cautionary tale about a life battling alcohol, an

by Susan Larson When we open a book, we enter a world. Part of the delight of reading is that sweet and complete surrender to a place we know or desire to know, and James Lee Burke is South Louisiana’s master seducer. In 22 Dave Robicheaux novels, Burke has guided loyal readers into his colorful, often violent version of Cajun country. In this author’s good literary company, we can squint at the sunlight on the bayou water, sway to imagined Cajun dance music, smell the sweet olive on a summer night. And oh, can we taste the food — spicy and soul-satisfying. Burke always reminds us of the richness of the Louisiana landscape, how it nourishes us even as we see it wash away. Life on the bayou has a particular sweetness in Dave’s bait shop days, a refuge from his work in law enforcement. The day begins with feeding the animals, maybe opening up a can of tuna for pet raccoons Mon Tee Coon and Tripod or that tough tomcat survivor Snuggs. Then Dave or his longtime friend Batist fire up the grill to make chicken and sausage with sauce piquante for hungry fishers coming back for lunch. When we hear the ping of a pecan dropping onto the tin roof, we know we’re home, just as we know that on a hot summer day, we can savor the sweetness of a watermelon picked fresh from the patch out back. Then at the end of the day, there’s the satisfaction of cooking up the sac-a-lait and bream caught in the bayou for a family supper. And when the late-night heebie-jeebies strike, Dave pours a glass of milk to drink in the dark on the dock. James lee burke: Under surveillance

58 MAY•JUNE 2019