Gumbo day:

You’re standing in the kitchen thinking, “I’ll just clean up a bit.” And then you are washing the stockpot and there’s really no sense in not starting the stock because it’ll take forever to boil anyway. So you put the water on to boil and you slice a whole onion in two and throw it in the water with the skin on. After all, you’re making this first phase vegetarian style for Vanessa and whoever else might prefer it that way so there’s no need for the fish skin or the shrimp shells.


Fifteen or so whole peppercorns roll into your hand from the jar and fall into the hissing stockpot, the bottom of which is still wet from the sink. Then it’s half a lemon, three large scored carrots, two celery stalks. Set it and forget it as Ron Popiel used to say. I almost forgot the bell & habanera pepper cores. Well, if I’m slicing the peppers up I might was get started with the file’.


I slice up two green peppers, a red, an orange, two habaneras of varying color and heat, the rest of the celery and I put all that rainbow in bowl. The cores and trimmings go into the stockpot. I’m only using two to three cups of this stock in the gumbo. The rest will flavor the rice. I put M.B.’s huge saucepan on the burner set to low and I melt a stick of butter. I dig in the drawer for the garlic press and find one of the four or so that hide in various drawers of utensils. By the time I have the garlic peeled the butter is melted so I turn off the heat and swirl the minced garlic in the butter to brown.


I cut the onion the way John taught me, you slice off both ends and then cut a grid into the onion leaving a heal to hold the checkered onion together. You then begin to shave off finely chopped onion like you were slicing bread. The onion joins the butter in the saucepan and I put the heat back on low, allowing the onion to become almost transparent in the butter. The peppers and celery go on top and you begin to stir, shaking your tin of sassafras so that each new butter coated turn gets dusted in the green powdery spice – two tablespoons – four – six – maybe more.


Stir and fold for ten minutes after you add the file’ powder so the vegetable seems coated in a thick green webbing. The smell of gumbo will at that point fill your house. To this mixture add a can of tomato paste and two 32 oz cans of whole stewed tomatoes with all the liquid. When the stock is done you’ll add two to three cups of that to this base and after it cooks down a bit you’ll be ready to season with Cayenne and paprika, white and black pepper, Crystal’s hot sauce and Tabasco. You can always add more stock and if you add too much you can always simmer it down.


This is where the vegetarians get off the elevator. The rest of us have shrimp, Orange Roughy (today – I change the fish), and chorizo to go, which mean I need to go back to the store. And don’t forget the sliced okra. That comes last so it holds together.