Hurricane Gustav approaches the Gulf of Mexico at the start of a three-day holiday.  As Gustav sets dead aim at many offshore platforms, and the Henry Hub, Asian energy prices increase.  American commodity traders hold their breath, wondering what’s going to happen when they return to work Tuesday.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=azm2VmyRQje0&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

Hurricane Gustav is already interrupting exploration and production activity in the Gulf of Mexico with Tropical Storm Hanna following closely behind.  Here is the latest projected track of Gustav from the National Hurricane Center.

Eric’s Website

A frightening scenario as a large hurricane moves into the Gulf of Mexico.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26471922

Eric’s Website

Antoine’s is just one of many wonderful restaurants in New Orleans but it is universally accepted as the one that created the recipe for Oysters Rockefeller.  Marilyn was lucky enough to find a difficult to find edition of Antoine’s Restaurant – since 1840 Cookbook published in 1979 and written by Roy F. Guste, Jr., a fifth generation proprietor of the fabled restaurant.  Antoine’s recipe for Oysters Rockefeller is a secret but Guste, Jr. provides some insight into its creation.

According to Guste, Jr. the recipe for Oysters Rockefeller was created by Jules Alciatore, his Great-Grandfather.  Snails from Europe were in short supply at the time.  Unlike snails, oysters were abundant in New Orleans but almost no one had experimented with eating them.  Alciatore concocted a sauce that was so rich and magnificent that he named it after John Rockefeller, one of the richest men in the world at the time.  Guste, Jr. estimated that the restaurant had already served more than three and a half million servings by 1979.

Guste, Jr. went on to say that “As many times as I have seen recipes printed in books and articles, I can honestly say that I have never found the original outside of Antoine’s.”

This is likely true as recipes are many for the fabled dish.  Here is the best version of the dish that I could find, at http://www.gumbopages.com/food/app/erstas-rock.html.  Check out this site as it features even more history on the recipe.  To taste the real thing, you’ll still have to visit the Big Easy.

Oysters Rockefeller

• Two dozen fresh oysters on the half shell, oyster liquor reserved
• 4 springs flat-leaf Italian parsley
• 4 green onions (including the green part)
• A handful of fresh celery leaves
• At least 6 fresh tarragon leaves
• At least 6 fresh chervil leaves
• 1/2 cup dried fresh French bread crumbs (homemade, not out of a can)
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (hey, it's supposed to be "rich enough for Rockefeller"!)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Tabasco or Crystal hot sauce, to taste
• 2 tablespoons Herbsaint or Pernod (optional)
• Rock salt or kosher salt

Mince together the parsley, green onions, celery leaves, tarragon and chervil as finely as you possibly can. Take as much time as you need. Mince them more finely than anything you've ever minced in your life. Mix this together with the bread crumbs and the softened butter into a mortar and mix the whole thing together into a smooth paste, but do leave a little texture to it. (You can do this in a blender or food processor, but you'll leave a lot of it behind, stuck to the inside, and it'll be just easier to do it by hand in a mortar; you'll have an easier time getting it all out, and you'll have the satisfaction of serving something truly hand-made.) Season to taste with salt and pepper, Tabasco or Crystal and, if you like, the Herbsaint.

Preheat your broiler. Lower the top rack to the middle of the oven. Spread the rock salt (preferable) or kosher salt over a large baking sheet; this will keep the oysters level under the broiler, so that they won't tip over. Moisten the salt very slightly. Plant the shells in the salt, making sure they're level. Place one oyster in each shell, plus a little bit of oyster liquor. Spoon an equal amount of the prepared herb/butter mixture over each oyster.

Place the baking sheet on the middle rack and broil until the edges of the oysters have curled and the herb butter is bubbling, about five minutes. Watch carefully to make sure you don't overdo it. Serve immediately.

YIELD: Six servings of four oysters each (regular people-sized serving), or four servings of six oysters each (New Orleanian-sized serving)

 Eric’s Website

Most colleges and universities require that geology students complete a summer course in the elements of field geology, i.e. surface mapping, plane table and alidade and use of Brunton Compass.  I was a sophomore when I took my field course at Northeast Louisiana’s camp near Batesville, Arkansas.  For you NASCAR fans, Batesville is the hometown of racer Mark Martin.

I’ve already chronicled many of the adventures – or more likely misadventures – that happened during my time at field camp.  This story is neither, more like a sad tale of one of those lifetime opportunities that you somehow let slip through your fingers and have regretted it ever since.

My mapping partner, Russell B. and I were working a quadrangle twenty or so miles out of Batesville.  The field camp lay square atop the Ozark Uplift, a wonderfully scenic cluster of gently rolling hills topped with stunning sea green vegetation.  The terrain reminded me of the Austrian Alps in the movie, Sound of Music.  Russell was similarly affected one particular afternoon.

We were finished with our mapping for the day and heading down the road to where Professor D and his field assistant awaited with the vehicles.  My partner threw down his mapping board, extended his arms in a Shirley Andrews imitation and began singing the hills are alive with the sound of music, his voice raised in his best basso rendition.

“Russell, you are a scream,” I said, realizing his spontaneous outburst provided us both with a momentary release from the heat, humidity and mosquitoes.

“We’ll both be screaming if we don’t make it back to the cars by three.”

“Dr. D’s never left anyone up here.”

“Not yet,” he said.

He was right.  Both of us had already had an encounter with Dr. D, suffering the lecturing attack of his sharp tongue, and threat of an impending zero on this particular portion of field camp.  Neither of us wanting to suffer Dr. D’s wrath again, we double-timed our way to the County blacktop – just as a green Ford Pickup truck came tooling down the road.  Rather than flying past, the truck braked to a stop in front of us.

It was in the days before serial killers and mass murderers.  And besides, we’d seen the truck and its driver several times before as it passed us on the blacktop.  Russell and I sprinted forward in anticipation of a ride down the road to where Dr. D and the other students awaited, and meeting the driver that had also seen us a time or two as we worked our way down the road.

The driver was a pretty blonde young lady, her smile as broad and friendly as she was double gorgeous.  “You boys need a ride?” she asked, her words as twangy as a Dobro played with a slide formed from the neck of a Budweiser bottle.

“You bet we do,” I said, tossing my map board in the truck bed and sliding in next to her before Russell had a chance to beat me to it.

Russell followed, his miffed expression telling me how unhappy he was about being taken advantage of.  I had no time to worry about his appearance of utter hurt as I was too busy ogling the young woman sitting so close to me that I could feel the warmth of her legs.

Did I already mention that she was gorgeous?  She was, with flawless skin wonderfully tanned by a friendly Arkansas sun, big flashing eyes the color of an Irish vale in springtime, and teeth that reminded me of a perfect strand of pearls.

Oh, and what a bod!  A shapely pair of tanned legs protruded from cutoff blue jeans whose frayed hemline provided little more cover than a bikini bottom, and twice as sexy. My vivid imagination informed me that she was also panty-less.  Maybe, but I didn’t care.  Her blouse was one of those low-cut, braless strap-arounds so popular at the time.  I must have been staring – I know that I was drooling – because Russell elbowed me sharply in the ribs.

“I’m Susan Love,” she said, her coy smile indicating that she hoped I was getting an eyeful.  “What’s yours?”

“I’m Russ and this is Eric,” Russell said, reaching across my chest to shake Susan’s hand.

“I’ve seen you two up on the mountain.  You’re college boys, aren’t you?”

We both smiled and nodded, Susan’s nuance indicating that she thought our studenthood a good thing.

“There’s an old quarry filled with water up in the hills.  I’m going swimming there with some of my girlfriends.  You boys want to come along?”

I glanced at my watch.  It was a quarter of three.  Realizing the consequences of failing to return to the cars by departure time was tantamount to failing the course and I said, “We have to get back to the camp but we’ll be back here tomorrow.  Can we go then?”

Susan just shook her pretty head.  “Sometimes we go skinny-dipping.  Sure you boys can’t make it today?”

By this time, Russell and I were both blubbering.  Susan’s smile told us she knew it and fully understood her physical control over us.  There were parts of me that craved to go with her.  Well, at least one part, but I couldn’t and I knew that Russell felt the same.  We had obligations to fulfill, parents to appease.

Russell was begging when he said, “There’s nothing in the world we’d rather do than go swimming with you and your girlfriends but we’ll flunk if we do.  Can’t we meet you tomorrow?”

Wielding her power, Susan just grinned and shook her head.  “Maybe I’ll see you boys on the road again, or in town at the ice cream place.”

Lovely Susan let us off at the geology cars, our only consolation the envious looks of the other students as we climbed out of the truck.  We visited the ice cream place in Batesville several times that summer but we never saw Susan again, either there or on the road.

Years have passed since that summer in Arkansas but I can still feel the palpable warmth of Susan’s thighs next to mine and still remember the unfulfilled promise in her sexy smile.  But hey, at least I made a C in field geology.

Eric’s Website

Like the people in the Gulf Coast, energy commidity brokers brace for changes.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aY6N3AZQZYes&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

Here is the latest from the storm’s in the Atlantic and Caribbean presented by the National Hurricane Center.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Eric’s Website

Another hurricane terrorizes the Gulf Coast, and the oil industry.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a17i_A1yXJ2U&refer=energy

http://www.ericwilder.com

I’m at the Summer North American Prospect Expo in downtown Houston today.  It is possibly the largest oil and gas prospect trade show in the world.  Hopefully I’ll have some pictures later today.

Eric’s Website

Natural gas prices decline on signs of sufficient supply for the winter, just as a new tropical storm forms.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=ametTHJcRqPc&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

It was raining a few nights ago when I went to bed and still raining the next morning when I awoke.  It continued raining all day long with even more rain predicted throughout the week.

I share an office with another geologist named Ed.  Only slightly left of the politics of Attila the Hun, he asked me this morning,

“Now who believes in global warming?”

After experiencing record high temperatures during the first week of August and a sixty-degree day less than a week later, I’m not sure now what I believe.  One thing that I do know is that something in our atmosphere is causing considerable changes in the weather.  2007 was the wettest year in Oklahoma history.  More than a third of August, usually Oklahoma’s hottest and driest month, is already the wettest August in recorded Oklahoma history.

Yes, Attila, you may be right about global warming, but weather patterns are changing around the world.  Oklahoma used to be known as the “Dust Bowl.”  Now I’m thinking that maybe I should start building a boat in my back yard.

Eric’s Website

Even growing up in Louisiana I never knew what the “dog days of summer” really meant.  Last week temperatures in Oklahoma exceeded all time records – 110 degrees in some parts of the state.  The heat and humidity were deadly, several people in Oklahoma succumbing to the weather.  Watching my dogs burrow in the loose dirt beneath the shade of a large oak tree, and then lie almost comatose until long after dark has taught me the meaning of the phrase.

When Anne was alive we often spent time in the summer on Cape Cod with my cousin Angela and her then husband Bob.  Bob and Angela had just returned from Spain one summer when we were with them at their vacation home on John’s Pond.  The weather was hot, even for the Cape, and Angela whipped up a batch of gazpacho.

The cold soup became an instant favorite of mine, although I am rarely lucky enough to find it here in Oklahoma.  While wiping perspiration from my brow during the recent spate of hot weather, I remembered the cool treat and began surfing the web for a recipe.  I found this one on a site called the Passionate Cook.  They recommended adding a splash of vodka.  I would like to see that recommendation and add another splash!

Serve these at your next summer party and I guarantee you’ll have everyone begging for more.

Gazpacho Shots

1 stalk celery
1 red pepper (ca. 300 g)
1 yellow pepper (ca. 300 g)
500 g cucumber (peeled)
6 spring onions
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
150 g tomatoes
2 tbsp thick tomato sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
generous dash of Tabasco (to taste)
chopped chives (to decorate, optional)

Work all vegetables in a food processor until very finely chopped. Put in a blender with the liquid ingredients and process until completely smooth. Add water or a very light soup stock until reaching the required consistency.  Try decorating the shots with chives, or serve with a slice of cucumber as a stirrer.

Yields 18 shots

The yoyo continues.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a1V1plVHrMr4&refer=energy

http://www.EricWilder.com

Oil prices end their downward spiral and continues to yoyo.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/oil-tops-120-barrel-weaker/story.aspx?guid={41E7D66D-D3D2-4939-952E-5B9FDA27E7F1}&siteid=yahoomy

http://www.ericwilder.com

This article is about a day late but it has some interesting reflections on the relationship between oil and natural gas prices.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aY70SKUujPbg&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

Boone makes a new prediction.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aPJVYrqDqWQs&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

It’s raining in Oklahoma now, temperatures cool but things were quite different earlier this month.  Three days of triple-digit, record breaking heat caused me to think about my childhood in Louisiana.  Summer temperatures were often over one-hundred degrees but we had no air conditioner.  Open windows and a few fans were our means of staying cool.

Staying cool in Louisiana during the fifties and sixties was a relative term.  About the only time you ever felt truly cool was when you were neck deep in water, a place my friends and I tried to be every day.  Our usual afternoon destination was the Vivian Municipal Pool and it was almost always approaching dark before we started home.

I was a freshman in college when my parents purchased their first air conditioner, just enough to cool their bedroom.  None of my college classrooms were air conditioned but my first dormitory room (a new building) was.  After my first night in that dorm room I was permanently spoiled.

I spent almost six months in the boonies of Vietnam.  The heat and the humidity were usually out of sight and only nightly rains provided a respite from the heat.  We drank instant coffee cooked in metal cups over the flame of a heat tab placed in a tin can punched with can opener air holes.  Hey, it kept us cool (at least in our minds) and we called it the radiator effect.

In the French Quarter of New Orleans owners still spray down their trees, plants and bricks with water hoses in the summer.  This method is employed at many courtyard restaurants such as the Court of Two Sisters, a famous restaurant in the Quarter.  The large pen where Velvet, Patch and Lucky stay is well shaded with many trees and I used my own water hose to cool things down tonight.

It’s still in the nineties outside as I keyboard this piece and stare out at the thermometer on the porch.  Am I going to open the windows tonight and relive a part of my misspent youth?  Nah!!  I think I’ll take a cool dip in the pool, all the way up to my neck instead.

Eric’s Website

Energy disparity between oil and natural gas is poised to change.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aa_VeMmtncY0&refer=energy

http://www.EricWilder.com

My close friend War T. Storm knows a thing or two about cooking.  I asked him for a recipe.  Even though he was born in the Queens (really some place that starts with an L) and grew up in the Bronx (maybe Coney Island) he is still a very good cook.  He doesn’t have many hard copy recipes because he, like Marilyn, prepares his dishes by “feel” and not from a recipe written on a three by five card.

This is an actual recipe that War T. got from his Grandpa Clarence, a man that did immortalize his recipes.  I have never heard of, much less tried fried spaghetti but Marilyn tells me that they used to make it at the restaurant where she worked on the pier in California.  War T. and Marilyn both tell me it’s wonderful so give it a try.

Fried Spaghetti

My Grandpa Clarence not only taught me his values of hard work and accountability but also a few secrets about southern cooking.  He also taught me respect for the grill.  As far as he was concerned “if you were not grilling with charcoal you might as well be cooking on the stove.”

There was no such thing as sauce from a can.  Bread was always prepared at home and not bought at a store.  The kitchen was Grandpa’s kingdom and no one dared to cross the moat when King was in court.  Knowing his expertise, the crowds of family and friends never seemed to decrease from his table.

My granddad would quickly kill off potential competition with just a taste of his homemade marinating sauce.  In my lifetime I have seen many men hang up their tongs (would-be Iron Chefs) after a night at the Kings court.

Others would leave dazed and confused with dreams of recreating the masterpieces they had observed - masterpieces that for Grandpa was as simple as, dare I say “apple pie.“

Grandpa Clarence was an extraordinary cook, whose famous line when things didn’t go right for you was “you didn’t hold your face right.”  Keep that in mind if this turns into a casserole the first time or two that you make it, as the key is to keep it together when you flip it.

I hope you like this recipe.  If you do, I’ll share another recipe with you next time along with some great stories about a great man

Equipment

Deep cast iron frying pan

9/13 cake pan or larger

Flat no lip cookie sheet

Large boiling pot

Ingredients

2 pounds of regular spaghetti or vermicelli

2 cups of mozzarella, 2 ½ cups of Monterey jack, 2 cups of Swiss cheese

Salt, ground pepper, Italian seasoning, rosemary, ground red pepper, olive oil, crushed tomatoes, tomato puree, thyme, oregano, fresh garlic, olive oil

Ok, let’s get to it.

1. Boil spaghetti in water with cut fresh garlic.  You want the spaghetti to be slightly undercooked
2. Rinse and drain under cool water allowing the spaghetti to firm.
3. Mix in bowl with cheese and seasonings
4. Heat olive oil in the deep frying pan (aprox ¼ inch)
5. Once hot place your mixture into the pan and spread evenly
6. Let stand for about 15-18 minutes undisturbed.
7. Here is the moment of truth, you have to flip it with out it falling apart to brown the bottom, if not you will have a very good casserole
8. Flip the half done Fried spaghetti onto the cookie sheet.
9. Add some more olive oil and slide the Fried spaghetti back into the hot pan
10. let cook for another 10-12 minutes, until brown and crunchy

Your sauce will be your crushed tomatoes, thyme, oregano and fresh garlic marinating in your tomato puree while you are cooking the fried spaghetti.

Cut a slice, add your sauce and enjoy.

Eric’s Website

This is almost unbelievable.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aDuZLnxkKPGA&refer=energy

Eric’s Website

Technical analyst says the natural gas market decline is running out of steam and now wants to move higher.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a5Lheaza6MNc&refer=energy

http://www.EricWilder.com

When it comes to oil prices the World remains in confusion.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aSJKCoUxJdcY&refer=energy

http://www.EricWilder.com

With demand lessening, the U.S. cuts its forecast on demand for crude oil and gasoline.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=acZqSUSZyfg4&refer=energy

http://www.EricWilder.com

We set a temperature record last week in Oklahoma City – 106 degrees.  I don’t have a temperature log in front of me but I don’t recall it ever breaking 100 degrees last summer.  2007 was a different animal though.  The State set a record that year for the most rainfall ever recorded.

What a difference a few months makes.  Prior to 2007 Oklahoma was in the third year of a persistent drought – three years of far less rain than we usually get.  I recall writing a piece called Oklahoma Burning and I updated it many times before the drought finally ended.

Hot weather and lack of rainfall has returned with a vengeance.  Two of my dogs, Princess my youngest and Lucky my oldest are laying on the cool kitchen tile as I peck away on the keyboard.  Lucky is normally an outdoor dog but I expect he will be staying inside for awhile, at least until Wednesday when the temps are predicted to drop once again below 100 degrees.

There’s little you can do about the weather in Oklahoma except to have a good air conditioner in the summer and a warm heater in the winter.  Well, there are a few other ways to remedy the heat and I think I will employ one of them shortly - wait for the sun to go down a bit and then take a long dip in the pool – or wait for next week when it will probably rain.

Eric’s Website

Here is a recipe for Conch Fritters I found at Bahamas Travel.  Believe me; they taste great, but good luck finding any conch unless you live in Florida!

2 cups freshly bruised conch, cleaned and diced
3 teaspoons tomato paste
1-1/2 Tablespoons flour
2 onions, diced
1 Bahamian sweet pepper, diced
2 stalks of celery, chopped
3 Tablespoons baking powder
3-4 cups vegetable oil
Hot Peppers and salt to taste

Combine all ingredients (except oil) in a large bowl.  Blend well.  Heat oil in deep frying pan or pot until water dropped into oil sizzles.  Drop batter by the tablespoonful into hot oil.  Fry until brown.  Drain on paper towels and serve.

Makes 40 fritters

Eric’s Website

Major brokerage house predicts that crude oil has reached as high as it will go for quite some tim.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=ap4ZsDI2JzkQ&refer=energy

Wilder’s Website

I never had much money when I was pursuing my undergraduate degree.  You didn’t really need a lot because the cost of an advanced education in the 60s was far less than it is today.  As I remember, tuition, room and board at what was then Northeast Louisiana State College was only seventy-four dollars a month.

We had a wonderful student center complete with snack bar, pool tables and pinball machines.  I was never very good at pool but I was a wizard when it came to pinball.  The games in those days were all mechanical (as opposed to digital - either not yet invented or else too expensive for common use) and cost only a nickel to play (five games for a quarter).

Every college student had an angle and when it came to pinball the angle was this: a skilled and lucky player might win a hundred games.  Four players could play at a time so he would charge his three challengers a total of fifteen cents to punch off four games.  If one of the players also won games then he (mostly always a he) would split the take until all the games were played.  A skilled pinball player could support his pinball habit while making a few extra spending bucks every day.  And yes, pinball was an addiction.

I was a great pinball player but a horrible business man and even worse con man (you had to be a little of both to really make money at pinball).  I usually ended up sharing my free games with buddies, and my brother Jack who was a needy (and I use the word kindly) pinball player.

During the last oil boom I was lucky enough to own a couple of analog pinball machines, including Aztec, possibly the greatest pinball machine ever created.  Like the oil bust my machines went the way of my money – gone and might as well forgotten.  Oh well! It was fun while it lasted.

I somehow managed to graduate from Northeast after four or so years but to this day I know more about pinball than geology (my college major).  What a career move!  They don’t even have analog pinball machines now and any self respecting ten year old (male or female) can whip my butt on Wii.  Let ‘em try it on Aztec though and I’ll teach the young pups a lesson they’ll never forget.

Wilder’s Website

After many months oil finally drops below $120 barrel.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aL0LFkqR.I.8&refer=energy

http://www.EricWilder.com

Here is a diagram from the NHC (National Hurricane Center) showing the projected path and windspeeds of Tropical Storm Edouard.

http://www.EricWilder.com

I was planning to vote for Obama but as a person that barely survived the last windfall profits tax I may just have to vote for McCain instead.

Obama ad calls for return of windfall profits tax - Yahoo! News.

http://www.EricWilder.com

This is a very interesting article written by Kjell Aleklett, the founder of the Uppsala Hydrocarbon Depletion Study Group

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/41166

http://www.EricWilder.com

My first wife Gail was the youngest of five sisters and two brothers.  As in most Cajun families the siblings were close, the oldest five all living within ten miles of each other.  Gail’s mother Lily had three sisters and a brother and they all lived less than a quarter mile from each other all their lives.

Although I always had a predilection for Lily’s cooking all of Gail’s aunts were wonderful cooks.  They all had their specialties never to be passed up whenever offered.  Poulet Sauté a La Creole (Chicken Sautéed Creole Style) was the specialty of Gail’s Aunt Lectra.

I recently found this recipe in a stack of old letters.  It’s a Creole standard but I’m fairly sure that Lectra, like all good Cajun cooks, had a secret ingredient or two that she never shared with anyone.  I’m thinking maybe a touch of paprika.  It doesn’t really matter because I know all you aspiring Cajun-Creole cooks will soon find your own secret ingredient(s) that will make this dish your own.

POULET SAUTE A LA CREOLE

2 spring chickens                                  6 tomatoes, sliced

1 clove garlic, chopped                         Salt and pepper

1 sprig of thyme