3. Everlee Mason
4. Sweet Rest Funeral Home
5. Green
6. Begonias
7. Springhill
8. His father’s auto-parts warehouse
9. Key lime pie
10. Restonic
11. Farmerville
12. Callista Street
13. $1.05
14. Three quick knocks, then two spaced apart
15. Lillian
Living Dead in Dallas:
1. Deep crimson
2. Bourré
3. The Shrimp Boat
4. Golden brown
5. Dennis Engelbright
6. Stanislaus Davidowitz
7. The Bat’s Wing
8. Woof
9. Jerry
10. Tawny Kelner
11. Glen Craigie Methodist
12. Chuck
13. Mimosa Lake
14. Dr. Sonntag
15. Thomas Charles, Sarah Isabelle, and Lee Davis
Club Dead:
1. Marvin
2. Buck Foley
3. Velda Cannon’s
4. Corinne
5. Janice’s earrings
6. Sarah McLachlan’s “Good Enough”
7. Harvey
8. Terence
9. The Hounds of Hell
10. Tommy
11. The Kiley-Odum Hunt Club property
12. Champagne
13. Josh
14. Ray Don
15. Doug
Dead to the World:
1. Terrell
2. Springhill
3. Shelley
4. Wednesday
5. Coughlin
6. The Last Supper
7. Shifters don’t have to talk to Sookie Stackhouse.
8. Matthew
9. John Dowdy
10. Carlton Norris, for statutory rape
11. Dr. Skinner
12. Stans and Curlew
13. Parnell
14. Jeneen
15. 714 Parchman Avenue, Shreveport, LA
Dead as a Doornaiclass="underline"
1. In the trees north of the parking lot
2. Dave
3. The Tortugas
4. A chocolate milkshake
5. Jack has hot tea, and Lily has a Diet Coke.
6. 214
7. Marlon
8. Hancock’s
9. Mary Helen
10. A screwdriver
11. Ms. Beeson
12. Greta
13. A gardenia bush
14. . Iowa
15. Dago (Antonio Guglielmi)
Definitely Dead:
1. A bear
2. Mary Jane Jasper
3. . Mrs. Garfield
4. Methodist-Episcopal minister
5. A two-quart CorningWare casserole dish
6. Fruit juice, sharp cheddar, bacon, gift paper, and a really pretty blue bra and matching panties
7. Barbara and Gordon Pelt
8. Minden
9. Medium blue terrycloth
10. . A candlestick
11. A skintight, cut-down-to-here red dress decked with darker red sequins (and some gorgeous alligator pumps)
12. . A pretty yellow dress with low heels
13. Ra Shawn
14. Huntsville, Alabama
15. A Rite of Ascension
All Together Dead:
1. Linette Robinson
2. Dish towels
3. Fifteen
4. Sophie-Anne Leclerq presides over Area One, Arla Yvonne over Area Two, Cleo Babbitt over Area Three, Gervaise over Area Four, and Eric Northman over Area Five.
5. 1576
6. Horowitz
7. A glittery green cocktail dress, fuck-me shoes, and a see-through thong
8. The seventh floor
9. A heavy brocade of gleaming gold cloth worked in a pattern of blue and scarlet
10. Queen Phoebe Golden’s
11. Illinois
12. Lena
13. Kate Book
14. Dan Brewer
15. St. Cosmas
From Dead to Worse:
1. Fay
2. San Francisco
3. Ed
4. Dark blue
5. Meatloaf
6. An all-night grocery
7. Audrey, the child of Gervaise’s lieutenant, Booth Crimmons
8. Lorinda
9. Nora Roberts
10. Don Dominica
11. Waco, Texas
12. Whispering Palms
13. Janesha
14. Nandinas
15. Duchesne
Dead and Gone:
1. Tessa
2. Three
3. Fire Chief Trochek
4. Riki Cunningham
5. Lightning
6. Bad wiring
7. One blue, one yellow
8. Willie Chenier
9. Ginjer
10. Louis Chambers
11. Murry
12. Enda
13. Brock and Chessie Johnson
14. An upholstery shop
15. Lee
Dead in the Family:
1. Twenty-one
2. Bannister
3. Two months
4. Katherine Boudreaux
5. Sallie
6. A white Lexus
7. His father’s sister’s
8. Homer
9. A child Hunter knows who has a birthmark on her face
10. The Poky Little Puppy
11. The element
12. Doreen
13. Mr. DeWitt
14. Mr. Barlowe
15. He killed a human who attacked him with a hoe while he was in wolf form.
Dead Reckoning:
1. Donald Callaway
2. A paint store
3. Marcia Albanese
4. Death by Fashion in Shreveport
5. New Bedford
6. Youree Drive
7. Shocking pink
8. Pearl’s
9. Cait
10. India
11. Butterscotch
12. Mrs. Gristede
13. A Dodge Charger
14. Three
15. Dusty Kolinchek
Southern cooking has a style—and a flavor—all its own. When I decided to include recipes that would celebrate the tastes of Louisiana, not to mention the entire South, I decided to throw the doors open to my fans, who had already created a cookbook under the auspices of Charlaine’s Charlatans.
I was wonderfully surprised by the response—the recipes came pouring in! After taste-testing all of them, we selected a range that showcased Southern cooking, from breakfast to dessert, including drinks. I hope you have the chance to try and enjoy some of these true down-home Southern recipes—I know I sure did!
BREAKFAST:
Belle Rive Brunch Eggs
Eggs Benedict
French Market Beignets
LUNCH:
Burgers Lafayette Sauce
Cold-Weather Chili
Merlotte’s Chicken Strips
Mitchell’s Favorite Meatloaf
SUPPER:
Calvin’s Catfish
Crawdad’s Country-Fried Steak
Crossroads Jambalaya
Sookie’s Chicken Casserole
Stackhouse Smothered Pork Chops
SIDES:
Antoine’s Fried Pickles
Bon Temps Sweet Potato Harvest
Gran’s Easy Baked Apples
Hotshot Hush Puppies
Jannalynn’s Golden Biscuits
Mardi Gras Corn Salad
Michele’s Homemade Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
Michele’s Parmesan Garlic Croutons
Pinkie’s Fried Green Tomatoes
Sister’s Mashed Potato Casserole
DESSERTS:
Adele Hale Stackhouse’s Blue-Ribbon Chocolate Cake
Aunt Patty’s Sour Cream Cake with Praline Frosting
Caroline Holliday Bellefleur’s Chocolate Cake
Diner Key Lime Pie
Louisiana Pralines
Perdita’s Bread Pudding with Bourbon Sauce
Portia’s Sweet Potato Pie
Wicked Peach Cake
DRINKS:
Classic Southern Sweet Tea
Country Porch Lemonade
Breakfast
BELLE RIVE BRUNCH EGGS
TIME: PREP TIME 30 MINUTES, MARINATING TIME 8–12 HOURS, BAKING
TIME 90 MINUTES • SERVES 8–10
INGREDIENTS:
8 slices bread, torn into cubes
1 dozen eggs
2¼ cups plus ½ cup milk
¾ tsp. dry mustard
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 lb. ham, cubed, or 2 lb. cooked bacon, crumbled
½ cup green onions, finely chopped
½ cup red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 cup fresh mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1½ cups shredded cheese (cheddar, Monterey Jack, or a blend, your choice)
1 can (10¾ oz.) cream of mushroom soup
Place the bread cubes into a greased 9 × 13” pan. Beat the eggs, 2¼ cups milk, mustard, salt, and pepper. Pour over the bread cubes in the pan. Evenly sprinkle the ham or bacon, onions, bell pepper, and mushrooms over the top of the egg mixture. Top with the cheese. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.
In the morning, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Mix the can of soup with ½ cup milk and pour over the refrigerated egg mixture. Bake, uncovered, for 90 minutes. The dish will puff when baking but will deflate after it is removed from the oven. Cut into squares and serve hot.
EGGS BENEDICT
TIME: 15 MINUTES • SERVES 4
INGREDIENTS:
¼ cup mayonnaise (not salad dressing)
1 rounded tsp. brown mustard (not honey mustard, but horseradish mus-
tard or champagne mustard works very well)
¼ cup plain yogurt or sour cream
2 English muffins or 4 leftover biscuits
4 slices sandwich ham or Canadian bacon
⅔ cup water
Pinch of salt
A few shakes of Tabasco sauce (or your preferred pepper-vinegar sauce)
4 eggs, room temperature, as fresh as possible
This takes a little practice in terms of timing because the heat goes on the sauce, the eggs, and the meat from different directions at the same time. Once you get the timing down, however, it’s the easiest Eggs Benedict you’ll ever cook.
Mix the mayonnaise, mustard, and yogurt or sour cream in a small, cold saucepan. Set aside. Split your muffins or biscuits and lay them, torn side up, on a cookie sheet. Preheat the broiler but don’t put the bread in yet.
Lay the meat in a cold skillet, preferably with a touch of bacon grease, and place the skillet over low heat to brown the meat. If not using a castiron skillet, start with a very low heat. Allow meat to cook, making certain it does not burn. Note: The meat cooks better if it is cut into strips before being laid in the pan, but then it looks less like Eggs Benedict.
As soon as you have the meat pan on the heat, turn to the eggs. Pour ⅔ cup water into a 1-quart bowl. Salt it. Shake in a few good jolts of Tabasco or your favorite vinegar-based pepper sauce. Stir. Crack the eggs and gently slip them (minus the shell) into the water, pricking each yolk once with a toothpick.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Microwave on full power for 2–3 minutes. Let the eggs stand, covered, to give the whites time to completely set and the yolks time to thicken, about 2 minutes.
As soon as you turn on the microwave, put the saucepan with the mayonnaise mixture over low heat and stir pretty constantly for about 5 minutes, until heated through.
When the microwave dings, pull the sauce off the heat long enough to put the bread under the broiler to toast the torn side lightly. While the bread toasts, put the sauce back over low heat and stir. Allow the bread to lightly toast, and then remove it from the oven. The sauce is done when the bread is.
Once the bread is out, quickly drain your eggs and roughly divide them. Shuffle your hot bread onto plates. Top with the meat, then the eggs, and then the sauce. Don’t agonize over the nonround eggs or piles that slip over sideways.