Award-winning author

CHERIE CLAIRE

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Anytime is gumbo time!

Sep 19, 2018
2 min

Anytime is gumbo time!

When the weather dips from sweltering to lovely in Louisiana, people exclaim, "It's gumbo weather!" Truth be told, we don't need autumn's chill or winter's cold to cook up a gumbo. We can eat it anytime. We just eat it more during the cold-weather months. In my "Cajun Embassy" series my three main characters meet over a bowl of gumbo at Columbia Journalism School, all homesick for Louisiana. They become lifelong friends and call themselves "The Cajun Embassy." Of course, all

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99 Books at 99 Cents Book Fair

Sep 6, 2018
1 min

99 Books at 99 Cents Book Fair

Everybody loves a bargain so here's one to check out. Bookwrapt is selling 99 books for one week only for 99 cents each — and yes, mine is one of them, "The Cajun Embassy" three-book series. AND...each day, they’ll randomly choose 4 books and give away 3 copies each. How do you enter to win? Simple. Visit Bookwrapt's 99 cents Book Fair Page, click on the books in the fair until you find a link that leads to an instant giveaway on Amazon. You’ll have a 1-in-3 chance of being a

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Going 'Gone Pecan'

Sep 18, 2016
2 min

Going 'Gone Pecan'

“Gone Pecan,” the third book in my Cajun Embassy series, is a story close to my heart. It’s set in Lafayette, the town where I live and the hub of Cajun Country, and my main character follows a career path close to my own. But I was told many times that no one would get the title. In South Louisiana, the expression “Gone Pecan,” pronounced gȯn pē-kan, means to split, to leave. For instance, “Boudreaux went gone pecan after they realized he had stolen the money.” According to

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Life takes us where we need to be

Sep 1, 2016
2 min

Life takes us where we need to be

Photo from Wikepedia Years ago I got the call from Hollywood — but it’s not what you think. I nabbed a job as an Internet editor for Variety.com, the entertainment news daily. I was honored and thrilled, even though that little voice inside my head kept saying, “I thought you weren’t happy in web work, missed the people and writing stories.” It was true. I had spent years working in entertainment reporting and editing for newspapers but got talked into going to the Internet s

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Martin's Seafood Gumbo

Aug 1, 2016
2 min

Martin's Seafood Gumbo

In each of The Cajun Embassy books, I include a gumbo recipe. The following recipe is by Martin Taylor, the hero of “A Ticket to Paradise,” and it utilizes seafood. I’m from New Orleans where we include a lot of seafood in our gumbos and the roux is usually lighter. In Cajun Country where I now live, chicken and andouille sausage with a darker roux is more prevalent. But here's a secret because time is never something I routinely lack. Cajun Power sells a gumbo starter for se

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