It's Gumbo Time

It’s that time of year again in our home. Gumbo time! Cooler evenings and rainy nights bring out the appetites for this Louisiana delight. Taking the risk of sounding like ‘Bubba’ from the Forrest Gump movie I like seafood gumbo (shrimp or crawfish), chicken gumbo, chicken and sausage gumbo, squirrel gumbo, gumbo with okra or without okra and on and on. Basically, if it swims, flies, crawls or walks we stick it in our gumbo. I like gumbo in any form or fashion.

When we lived in Mexico City my wife, Dee, would make a pot of gumbo and rice and for just a brief moment, while we consumed that bowl of dark heaven, we were back home in Louisiana. A bowl of hot gumbo has a way of making everything right in the world.

There are a lot of things wrong with Louisiana. We are on the bottom of every list for things deemed right and the top of every list for things deemed wrong. Our politics are corrupt (best politicians money can buy) – Heck! Just down the road from my town there is the Oakdale Detention Center. Now serving time there we have a former Governor, Former Insurance Commissioner and Former Commissioner of Elections all serving for unrelated crimes - of course they are all innocent. (I think Bernie Ebbers of Worldcom fame is now our guest at this humble little Low Security B&B). My point – Louisiana has a “mess” wrong with it.

But, at the end of the day, our food is second to none and Gumbo sits at the top of that list!

So I leave my friends with this blessing:

May your roux be dark
And your sausage spicy
And your okra slimy
and may your rice never stick to the pot!

P.S. Don’t forget the Filet gumbo and Tabasco Sauce!