Why get drunk on Bourbon Street? Reflection on the French Quarter Terrorist Attack

My father was a cattle stockman in southwestern Oklahoma. As a child, I often accompanied him as he drove his pickup truck from pasture to pasture to feed his cows.

Many of my father's pastures lined a country road, and the entrance gates into these properties offered a convenient spot to park a car. On countless occasions, I would find a couple of dozen beer cans and bottles, evidence of a late-night drinking party. As I recall, the revelers favored Jax, Stag, Schlitz, and quart bottles of Coors.

On these occasions, it was my job to pick up the debris and throw it into the bed of my dad's truck. I remember wondering why someone would want to get drunk on a lonely Oklahoma road. How much fun could that be?

Early this morning, a terrorist drove a truck down Bourbon Street in New Orleans' French Quarter, killing at least fifteen people and injuring many more. The street was crowded with New Year's revelers, many drunk.

I've walked down Bourbon Street many times over the years. Believe me when I say it's nothing special. Bourbon is just a street lined with bars, strip joints, souvenir shops, and tourist-trap restaurants, and parts of the street smell like urine. Why would anyone think they would have a good time getting drunk and strolling down Bourbon Street at three o'clock in the morning?

American life is becoming increasingly dangerous, particularly for people attending mass events. Last year, numerous people were killed or wounded at nightclubs, large parties, and sporting events.

Average citizens can do little to protect themselves from being victims at these events, but maybe they should reconsider whether some events are worth the risk.

Partying in the French Quarter in the middle of the night is risky every night of the year. Muggers and pickpockets lurk in the shadows, looking for victims who are alone or drunk. It's true that the risk of being killed by a terrorist on Bourbon Street is low, but the New Orleans crime rate is high.

Isn't there somewhere safer to let your guard down from consuming too much alcohol than Bourbon Street on New Year's Eve at three o'clock in the morning?

Bourbon Street after a terrorist attack on New Year's Day

Photo credit: Fox News

Feral Pig Ribs: Better Than Store Bought

 A tornado blew through Wilkinson County a few days ago and knocked out an electrical substation. Woodville, the county seat, and my family's home on Lake Mary lost power for several days.

Our butchered hog lay cut up and packaged in our refrigerator when we lost power, and I had a harrowing thought about what that hog would smell like when it thawed out if we didn't find a way to keep it from unfreezing,

Kim and I loaded all the pig meat into ice chests, iced it down, and distributed it among various family members living in Baton Rouge. 

As we parceled the meat, I came across the ribs, which had been packaged in four freezer bags and were still frozen. Let's cook 'em!

Under normal circumstances, we would have slow-smoked the ribs in our electric smoker. However, our smoker was in Mississippi, where the power was out, so we elected to cook them in our kitchen oven in Baton Rouge. 

Here's our extemporaneous recipe:

• First, we marinated the ribs for about an hour in Italian salad dressing. Then, we removed them from the marinade and applied a dry rub of salt, black pepper, cajan pepper, and garlic powder.

• Next, we prepared a glaze of honey, a little whiskey, butter, wine vinegar, and barbecue sauce.

• After we slathered the glaze on both sides of the ribs, we wrapped each rack in a double layer of heavy foil, put the packaged ribs in a shallow baking pan, and popped them into a preheated oven, taking care to place them with their fatty sides up.

• We cooked the ribs at 350 degrees for two and a half hours. Then, we unwrapped them, applied more glaze, and broiled the uncovered ribs for five minutes to make the glaze crunchy.

We ate the ribs with Bush's baked beans, which we supercharged with bacon and onions. The ribs paired nicely with a Stella Artis beer.

Our first attempt at cooking feral hog ribs was a success. They tasted better than the pork ribs I buy at the grocery store.

As you can see, we cooked our hog ribs using a scratch recipe. To achieve a similar result, you can use your favorite marinade and grocery store barbecue sauce. 

 Indeed, If you've ever cooked store-bought ribs, you can cook wild pig ribs the same way, and they will taste just as good. As my friends assured me after my family butchering our first feral hog. wild pigs taste delicious if you don't try to eat a big boar.

90-Second Food Review: A Dummy's Guide To Tex-Mex Restaurants

I grew up in western Oklahoma, a region unknown for its cuisine. Even as a small child, I longed for spicy food, but the only condiment in my family's kitchen cabinet was Worcestershire sauce.

When I was a little older, I discovered Tex-Mex food. My family began dining at the El Chico restaurant in downtown Oklahoma City. 

I loved that restaurant! I was astounded by the complimentary tortilla chips and salsa—manna from heaven. I always ordered a combination plate with a tamale, an enchilada, and lots of chili gravy.

Unfortunately, El Chico banned us from the restaurant after my father and grandfather got into a loud and acrimonious dispute over who would pay our lunch bill. To this day, a copy of my father's driver's license is taped to the cash register with this warning: 

Precaución. No sirvas a este gringo ni a su familia Fossey. ¡Llámale a la policía!

Since those days, I've eaten in over a hundred Tex-Mex joints, and I consider myself an authority on this ethnic cuisine. Here are some tips to help you find a good Tex-Mex restaurant.

First, a Tex-Mex restaurant's popularity is primarily based on the strength of its margaritas.  If the joint's margaritas contain adequate tequila (fortified perhaps with Everclear), you will give the eatery a five-star review.

How can you determine if the margaritas are sturdy? Order a house margarita on the rocks. When you've finished it, a little voice in your head will tell you to switch to beer.

Ignore that voice, order a second drink,  and chug it down. If the proprietor deprives you of your car keys, you'll know the margaritas are strong enough.

Here are a few other pointers: 

First, Mexican beer is the only beer to drink when eating Mexican food, and it must be ice cold. I favor the obscure brands: Carta Blanca or Victoria. My friends like Corona, but I find it tastes too much like Bud Light.

Second, your server should serve your food on a hot plate. Nothing tastes worse than tepid Mexican food, and a good Tex-Mex restaurant will present you with a searing platter that will give you a second-degree burn if you unwisely touch it.

Finally, Mexican food is inexpensive, and most Tex-Mex restaurants are consistently good. I ate many meals at El Patio restaurant on Guadalupe Street in Austin while working my way through law school in the 1970s. The dinner plate only cost a buck fifty.

Ever since those days, Tex-Mex has been my favorite comfort food. Hot and flavorful, with an orange glow rising from the melted cheese, a Tex-Mex meal signals to me that all's right with the world.

The Enchilada plate at an El Paso restaurant. What's not to like?

A Recipe from Flyover Country: Wild Pig Tenderloin and Honeycrisp Apples

 As I wrote in an earlier blog, my family killed a feral hog at our Mississippi home a while back, and we've been experimenting ever since about how to cook and eat it.

First, a young family member cooked an excellent wild hog and rutabaga stew. If you're wondering what to do with your rutabagas, I suggest you cook them with a feral pig pork shoulder.

More recently, my wife, Kim, selected the tenderloin, a choice cut from our feral hog harvest, and concocted a recipe for wild pig tenderloin and Honeycrisp apples. Here's the recipe:

• Cut the tenderloin into one-inch thick medallions and marinate them in Italian salad dressing or your favorite marinade. 

• Wrap each medallion in a thick slice of bacon, securing the wrap with toothpicks. 

• Sear both sides of the medallions in a hot skillet, using a tablespoon of vegetable oil to keep the meat from sticking. 

• Slice one Honeycrisp apple into wedges and arrange them among the pork medallions. 

• Add two tablespoons of Worcester sauce to the pan and drizzle a small amount of Steen's cane sugar syrup over the medallions and apples. 

• Place the pan in a preheated oven and cook uncovered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the pork's internal temperature is 145 degrees. 

Kim served the tenderloin with baked Louisiana sweet potatoes seasoned with butter and brown sugar. Mustard greens or collard greens would also pair well with the pork.

Our next project: Mesquite Smoke Wild Hog Ribs!

Wild Pig and Honeycrisp Apples: Very Tasty

A woman is burned alive on the NYC subway: "A bad moon on the rise"

Well don't go around tonight . . .

[I]t's bound to take your life

There's a bad moon on the rise.

John C. Fogerty

An illegal alien from Guatemala was arrested a few days ago, accused of killing a sleeping subway rider by setting her on fire. According to witnesses, the attacker sat calmly in the subway car, watching his victim burn--perhaps even fanning the flames.

Plenty of subway riders witnessed the attack, and several people videotaped the horrific assault on their cellphones.  Apparently, no one thought to take off their winter coats and use them to smother the flames.

Perhaps bystanders were thinking of Daniel Penny, who subdued Jordan Neely, an addled homeless man who was terrorizing subway passengers riding the New York subway. Neely died, and Penny was prosecuted for criminal manslaughter. A jury acquitted Penny of the criminal charges, but he's being sued by one of Neely's relatives. 

What did subway riders learn from Penny's travail? In New York City, it's better to do nothing than intervene to protect someone from violence.

Veteran New Yorkers may dismiss this latest tragedy as an isolated event. After all, millions of people ride the NYC subways each week, and only one person has been burned to death. 

Of course, they're right. Nevertheless, I wonder whether city authorities are doing enough to keep New Yorkers safe.

I rode the Paris subways a couple of years ago and was surprised to see that the subway stations had transparent barriers that protected Parisians from falling or being pushed onto the train tracks.

What a good idea! I wonder why New York hasn't installed these safety devices. Wouldn't that be a better financial investment than hosting illegal aliens in luxury hotels?

And wouldn't it be wiser for the New York District Attorney's Office to praise people like Daniel Penny for stepping up to protect others from violence rather than spending public money to put these Good Samaritans in prison?

Of course, I speak from the perspective of a guy who lives in rural Mississippi next to a lake inhabited by alligators and invasive Asian carp. What do I know about life in urban America? 

As Lynyrd Skynyrd put it, I know a little and can guess the rest. The quality of life is deteriorating for average urbanites--the ones who buy their own groceries and don't have chauffeurs and private security guards. 

These folks may laugh at the people living in Flyover Country, dismissing them as "white Christian nationalists." Some urban progressives might go so far as to call rural Americans fascists because they refused to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate.

Urban Americans should consider the possibility that life in Flyover Country may be better than life in the inner cities--even though we don't live within walking distance of MOMA or a good Korean barbecue restaurant.

One thing for certain. If an illegal alien set a woman on fire in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, there would be no bystanders.  Someone would smother the flames with a camouflage hunting jacket, and a passerby with a gun would shoot the son of a bitch who set the blaze.

Photo credit: Associated Press

Congress Passes the Social Security Fairness Act: Will This Reform Force Nancy Pelosi to Cut Back on Foreign Travel?

 Congress adopted the Social Security Fairness Act on Saturday. This legislation eliminates the penalty millions of public employees experience if they belong to a pension plan that does not participate in the Social Security system.

This reform will benefit school teachers in at least 15 states. In Louisiana, for example, school districts don't make Social Security contributions for their employees. Teachers are poorly paid, and many take part-time or summer jobs to supplement their income.

Even though teachers make Social Security contributions on their second jobs, their Social Security benefits are reduced solely because their primary employer is not in the Social Security system. The American Federation of Teachers estimates that 1.2 million school employees are penalized by this unfair exclusion.

This reform legislation will allow these teachers to receive the Social Security benefits they deserve when they reach retirement age and enable them to retire without becoming impoverished. 

The Social Security Fairness Act passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, and the question arises: Why did it take so long?

Fiscal conservatives in Congress fought the legislation because the cost would further strain the already financially strapped Social Security program. Indeed, according to the Congressional Budget Office, this reform will cost an estimated $196 billion over ten years.

So what? President Biden blew through twice as much money when he forgave $180 billion in student loans over his four-year term and spent another $180 billion on the Ukraine war. I don't hear many people squawking about those expenditures.

This is the new reality. Retired Americans living on fixed incomes are being squeezed by inflation. Forty percent of older Americans depend solely on Social Security to fund their retirement, and the average monthly benefit is only about $2,000.

Surely, we can all agree that modestly enhancing Social Security benefits for retired teachers is a good use of public money. If this reform forces the federal government to economize, there will undoubtedly be some wasteful expenditures that can be eliminated.

For example, perhaps it's time to end American support for the Ukraine war and for Nancy Pelosi to cut back on foreign travel in private jets.

Nancy Pelosi in Japan. Did she fly coach?

My deer stand is an all-night restaurant for wild pigs

If you've never been deer hunting, you may think the sport involves creeping around the woods looking for a deer to shoot. After all, that's how Robert Dinero did it in "The Deer Hunter."

Most hunters, however, hunt deer by luring them to a deer feeder that distributes corn and then shooting their prey from a concealed spot called a deer blind.

Battery-operated game cameras placed near the deer feeders aid hunters in their quest. These cameras are activated by movement and linked to the hunter's cell phone. Thus, a deer slayer can know the exact time a deer arrives at the feeder. 

Simple enough, right? 

In real life, however, hunting deer from a blind is much dicier than you might think. First of all, deer are not stupid. They're suspicious when they come across a deer feeder for the first time. They ask themselves, Who was the Good Samaritan who left this delicious corn for me in this woodland clearing? What's the catch? 

Over time, the female deer become less cautious and may visit a deer feeder during daylight hours, usually around dawn. 

Not the bucks—particularly the trophy bucks with magnificent antlers. Their mamas didn't raise no fools. They've lived long enough to grow impressive antlers because they're too bright to approach a deer feeder during daylight hours.

So when do the big fellas show up to munch corn? In the middle of the night when it is illegal to shoot them.

And the bucks often have company when they arrive for their midnight snack. Feral hogs are nocturnal creatures, and they typically appear with their relatives to vacuum up the corn with their ideally fitted flat noses. These scruffy beasts have terrible table manners and never learned to share. Over time, they will drive out the deer.

During my last deer hunt, I contemplated the habits of the wary deer and the cunning wild pig as I shivered in my blind in the pre-dawn darkness. I'm not really hunting deer, I reflected. I'm running an all-night restaurant for feral hogs.

I hope they appreciate my generosity.