Wednesday got there and the solar/microwave oven was working fine. Jake watched it as if it was the Holy Grail holding the Ten Commandments/gumbo. Guess in his mind it was the Holy Grail.
Lunch came and the gumbo was delicious. Everything he said it would be.
Dark-Hersey-brown-rue (like a thin gravy) but had the taste of black peppered-fish gravy with green onions, seafood taste of shrimp, crab claws and a few crab bodies that were full of tender blue crab meat.
Boss man made sure we all knew he caught the crabs under the Pleasure Island bridge on the Louisiana side, to be exact. Texas side never produces such nice crabs, in his opinion. Yeah, you need go right back across the Sabine. No, I’d never say that out loud, especially since he was my boss, friend and today lunch host.
We had brown rice cooked in a rice cooker, Tommy brought, to pour the gumbo over. He insisted on brown rice, healthier than white long grain I usually use. Manny’s wife sent an excellent potato salad. We put it in the bowl beside the gumbo. Least we do. Others might use it as a side dish alone. Never know. But when in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Toker’s new girlfriend made nice deviled eggs (another Southern creation) for a young woman. I’ll have to tell you later, how I cook devil eggs. Takes many cooks years to make deviled eggs like she made. I teased Toker, her mama made them. Swore he watched her from the couch. Many folks like to eat crackers with gumbo too. But if you have all that, you really don’t need crackers. Gumbo, Tator salad, deviled eggs and you’re done.
What’s funny to me is that all of the above foods were a poor man’s meal, once a long time ago. Poor folks used what they had on hand. How do you think crawfish got so popular. They can easily pick them out of the corners of a rice field. There was always crawfish to be dug out of the corners of a rice field. Crawfish like the rice fields too. Easy and cheap meals.
Before we know it, they’ll charge us $5.00 for a pound of coon meat and sweet potatoes at the county fair.
If you’re susceptible to heart burn, better have something there. Otherwise, you will be paying dearly for that long honor and revered meal.
The grease-made rue, the Tex-Joy Steak Seasoning (made in Beaumont, Texas) (or Tony’s) the black pepper, all the onions, white, yellow and green, bell pepper, other peppers of all kinds, sometimes sausage.
See, not all good Cajun food is made is New Orleans. Oh Lord, no. But maybe if you’re blessed, you’ll find yourself in the right small Louisiana town, near a slow-moving bayou, you also find a rooster claw and you’ll know you just had the best gumbo of your life.
Rest in Peace Aunt Mary.