FLUKES: A Humorous Florida Crime Thriller by Jon Selman

Author:Jon Selman [Selman, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

He talked her through the polenta while he started on the roux. The etouffee came from a book on creole cooking given to him by an old friend a long time ago. He altered the roux slightly, preferring a smoother blonde flavor for this dish over a nuttier dark one, with the added benefit of reduced stirring and less chance of being scalded by splashing oil. When the roux was ready, he dropped in a diced onion, letting the water cook out and the onion caramelize, filling the small house with incredible vapors before adding the rest of the trinity. He couldn’t remember the origin of the polenta cake recipe, but the highlights were queso blanco and an infusion of diced jalapenos that gave the cakes a creamy heat, which paired well with the etouffee. He had to cheat and use instant polenta, chilling the results in the freezer before turning them into cakes.

Another thing he liked about the recipe, and all Cajun recipes, was the time, and by extension, commitment, required to make it. The quality of a creole dish is in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed while preparing it. McElvy and Ally killed the first bottle of wine before the polenta cakes were brown.

After dinner they opened another bottle, sitting on the steps of the front porch. When that bottle was empty McElvy went to the fly-tying desk, retrieving a bottle of Wicked Dolphin coconut rum that he’d hidden there years before.

Unlike mass-produced coconut rums that were forty-proof and flavored with the same artificial flavoring that Hawaiian Tropic used in their suntan oil, this rum was made from pure sugarcane and cut to eighty-proof using nothing but real coconut water. The flavor was incredible, with none of the aftertaste or heartburn brought on by cheaper versions. It was also alarmingly drinkable for an eighty-proof spirit. He mixed it with soda water and lime.

“Tell me about your ex-wife,” she said, tracing her short fingernails across the grain of the pine, flooded by condensation from her glass.

“Murph tell you about that?”

“I’ve heard things.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” he said, ignoring eyes he was sure looked his way. “It’s not my favorite topic.”

“So?”

“So,” he sighed. “Married four years. Two were good, one was okay. During the last two, we were little more than roommates. Part of it I put on her, and parts were all me.”

He took another drink. “I was distant. The therapist said it was from my time overseas, and she was right, but not in the way she thought. It wasn’t PTSD or anything, it was more of an overwhelming sense of… apathy? Maybe that was it. We were in Miami, I was making good money, and the work was fun for those first years, but I got bored. Once you figure the job out, it becomes factory work. No challenge, no thought required. You go to work, do your job, and you go home. There was no purpose or satisfaction. In a way, it was great, never taking work home with you.

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