Gumbo

One of the perils of Sequestering in Place, is my pen caught diarrhea and spilled over…

Wonderful Gumbo
It occurs to me that there must be deeper reasons for the greatness of gumbo. When I eat it, it is like a mouthful of differences all rolled together to make my tungsils happy. Happy is not the right word, flabbergumpshush is better. The yellow onion and the green onion make blue onyums. The thinly sliced sausage and pan fried chicken make brownandcrispy little chunkmokies. The okra and stewed tomatoes go together like red and green for Christmas.
Still there is more to it than that. I think of my nose and the way it winkles as I chop the parsley. Stems and leaves into fine flakes. The kitchen smells like a parsley fart, a poof of pungent parsley poot. The Worchester sauce makes me think of those stinky Aunt Chovie’s fish it’s made out of. I loved Aunt Chovie but I always thought she needed a bath. There is also a bit of boredom as the onion and bell pepper are chopped for the bazillionth time. It would be undoable if I were not so persnickety about the size of the cajun trinity pieces.
The making of the roux is excellent fun, but the roux goo is the best. The careful frying of each sliced sausage piece to a golden brown, tempting the old devil burner to escape the burn. Then the roux goo finale, when the precooked and shredded chicken is browned in the sausage oil. Careful removal of the chunkmokies is required to recover the maximum roux goo. I should add that the preparation of chunkmokies is Annie and Simba’s funnerest part cause little bits of brownandcrispies frequently fall off the cutting board or from the pan during a vigorous stir.