Step One. Get what you’ll need to go in the gumbo. This will include:

1. Going to LaPlace, LA for the good anduoille sausage. If you are in NOLA, this will take, round trip, one-and-a-half hours.
2. Going to the Honey Baked Ham store for a $5 ham bone for a 1/2 pound of the ham still left on the bone.
3. Buying or having on hand a fryer chicken, celery, onions, garlic, green peppers, green onions (what northerns call “scallions”), bay leaves, and fresh parsley. Plus spices–salt and pepper, cayenne pepper, Tony Chachere’s creole seasonings, thyme, maybe even a dash of oregano.

Step Two. Get a friend to assist. I get Pete. While I chop all the vegetables, he hacks the chicken. He browns the meat in a bit of vegetable oil and uses the rest of the chicken to make broth. He adds to this broth the discards of the onions, green onions, and garlic. Plus he adds a bit of salt and pepper. He lets the broth simmer for a good 40 minutes.

Step Three. This, for me, is the doozy. Add vegetable oil and flour to a scorching hot dutch oven and start stirring. Yes, you are making a roux. Do not use a plastic spatula; it may melt. As will your skin if it splatters. So don’t be too rough with your stirring. Let the color of the roux get to a rich chocolate color. Not this:

That’s more of a hazelnut. Not dark enough. Folks, this gets really scary here for me. I get all kinds of nervous just watching Pete stir the bubbling hot liquid. It even begins to smell a bit beyond roasted–just a suggestion of being on the cusp of burning. But as long as you diligently stir, IT WILL NOT BURN. Honestly, I wimp out here every time and move to Step Four. But not my friend Pete. He’s brave and that is why I solicit his aid. He keeps at it until he gets it here:

Thank God it’s done. We can move on.

Step Four. Add the onions, celery and bell pepper to the roux to stop it from cooking further. Turn the heat down to medium and keep stirring. After five minutes, add half of the green onions and all of the garlic. Cook five minutes more. Then add the ham and anduoille to the roux. Blend well and let cook about ten minutes. Then add your spices along with the chicken broth. Simmer for half an hour. Then add your chicken pieces and cook for another 40 minutes or so. Adjust seasonings as necessary.

Step Five. Wipe your brow, crack a beer and congratulate yourself on a job well done. Then go to bed. Gumbo tastes better the day after it is cooked.

Step Six. Wake up, smell the remnants of your cooking and work up an appetite. If you are fortunate, you will end up with a pot as good as this one:

You can garnish it with fresh parsley, the other half of the green onions, and file powder (to thicken it) and even add oysters just before serving. That’s the way I like it. Serve over rice and have some Tabasco or Louisiana hot sauce on hand to spice it up if you are in the mood.

Bon appetit!!

Every morning these days, we wake up to little red bites over Sun’s arms and face. Right now, she has over 10 bites on her. Mosquitoes. I HATE mosquitoes buzzing in my ear and biting me at night. Even more, I hate the thought of them biting on Sun unable to swat them away. Poor little boo-boo, and she doesn’t even complain.

We have researched what to do to get rid of the skeeters. We now turn off the indoor and outdoor lights when opening the outside door. We keep our windows closed. We kill them when we find them. I even find myself going in to the nursery in the middle of the night on the prowl. Usually I don’t find any. I don’t find any, that is, until the morning–then the bellies of the few we find are full of blood–Sun’s blood. IT SUCKS!

So, to combat all these evil mosquitoes, it’s come to this:

Yes, mosquito netting over the crib.

Welcome to the South. Enjoy the food.

I started working on my new knitting project on Saturday–Baby Mary Jane Booties for Sun. The left bootie went very well and flew of my needles. The right? Not so right. I misread the instructions and knitted a second left one. So I ripped back and re-did part of it. I have been told that the measure of a good knitter is the lack of fear in ripping back bad knitting. If that is the case, then I must be a great knitter, indeed! After three rip-backs, I was so disenchanted with the right one, I did the unthinkable. I ripped the whole thing apart (they call this “frogging” in knitting) and started completely over. So my left one was finished Sunday and my right one was finished last night. With no further ado, I give you my first baby booties:

Sun is getting baptized this Sunday and we are having the family and a few friends over afterwards. One of the things I want to serve at the little party is gumbo made with one of the andouille sausage links I recently purchased. The gumbo also calls for a bit of ham. I have never found any store-bought ham that I like for gumbos and red beans.

A few years ago, a friend told me about this good eats secret: the Honey Baked Ham Store sells its bones for five dollars. Why spend five dollars for a bone, you ask? Because for that five dollars you get this:

1. The bone added to red or white beans or black eyed peas even without much ham adds a lot of punch to the dish.
2. These bones come with at least three pounds of meat. I am not kidding. These bones have a lot of ham still left on them. We almost always have enough to add to the pot of beans or gumbo we are making with plenty left over. We give some to the cat and the dogs.
3. The bone comes jointed and is really two bones. We have two dogs. Once we are done cooking the bones, we clean them and give one each to the dogs. It is quite a treat for them.

So, a bone and ham for beans or gumbo, treats for the pets, as well as extra ham for all around noshing. It is so worth five dollars!!

Today, I go to Honey Baked Ham Store to get my bone. I smack my head on the car door getting Sun out of the car and stumble inside. I ask if they have any bones (and cross my fingers, because they do not always have one). And am told no. Dammit, I think. But then the clerk tells me, “We are out of the regular ones. . . But we have some cinnamon and apple glazed ones.” So I begin to think, “Cinnamon and apple glaze? For a gumbo? Well, I usually use a honey glaze and that works fine. . . . Should I try back later this week? Will I have the time for that? Seriously, this will work fine. Yup, I’ll try it.” Yes, all that crossed my mind in the span of four seconds. Then the clerk tells me this: “This glaze is only being offered for a limited time. So we can’t sell you the bone. We can give it to you, though.”

Wait. Did I seriously bump my head back at the car or did she just offer me a free five dollar ham bone? All thoughts cease in my mind and I look at this clerk real good. She’s looking back at me, waiting for an answer. “Sure,” I reply, I’ll bite. She went to her freezer, grabbed a bone, double bagged it, handed it to me, said, “Enjoy it!” and smiled.

Am I in a coma from knocking my head? Did I die and go to Heaven? Can this really be true? It was true! It did happen!!! HOT DAMN, people, this seriously made my day. And when I tell my family about it at the christening, boy, are they going to be jealous!

Here’s a picture of my magnificent free five dollar ham bone:

Makes my mouth water just looking at it. Oh, and the taste? I am not a big fan of cinnamon and I had concerns it’d be too sweet for a gumbo. But honestly, it is no more sweeter than the regular honey ones and it is going to be hard not to eat all the ham between now and Saturday when I make the gumbo–well, except for the fact that there is SO MUCH ham on it, I don’t think it’s possible for me to eat it all even if I tried.

One latent talent (I never realized those two words - latent and talent - were, like, the same word. Look at ‘em. Weird.) of Captain Sarcastic is his pumpkin carving skills. This guy has lots of talents–he can juggle, do origami, knit, fix computers, take professional photographs, make balloon animals, fix a car, float sheet rock, paint a room, weld (as in make artistic lamps), bathe a baby–get the idea? And in his bag of tricks is also pumpkin carving. Since we have known each other, he’s carved a pumpkin every Halloween.

His carving all started with a simple ghost. Then there was a cat, a witch, and several we do not now remember. Last year was the Green Goblin. That was a pretty high level of difficulty. But this year, he pulled out all the stops. The Williams-Sonoma pumpkin carving kit no longer had enough tools. We needed to go the hardware store to prepare to carve our pumpkin this year. He bought various and sundry Dremel rotary tool bits. And he did his first etched pumpkin:

Didn’t Scary Donald Duck come out great?

Did I mention how much I love Halloween? Pumpkin carving is one of the reasons. In addition to an amazing time at the pumpkin patch,

and an amazing carved (and etched) pumpkin, there are the pumpkin seeds.  To quote The Wizard of Oz’s Scarecrow (I mean, it IS Halloween, right?): Oh, joy, rapture! Every year I scrounge for all the seeds I can lay my hands on. I ask around at work and bum them off my friends. Because then I roast them and am in heaven. Here’s my recipe:

Get the seeds out of as many pumpkins as is humanly possible and clear them of the pumpkin goo. DO NOT WASH THEM. Pat them dry with paper towels and then spread them in a single layer on a cookie sheet (if you are like me, you may need to do this in batches or get several cookie sheets). Leave them to dry at room temperature for at least one night. Drying for two nights is better.

When you are ready to roast them, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Then coat the seeds with a THIN coat of oil–we use Hot & Spicy flavored oil. Then sprinkle seasonings on them–we use Tony Chachere’s. Here’s the beauty of pumpkin seeds–the seasoning possibilities are endless–there are so many salty/spicy things you could add, or you could go the sweet route and use cinnamon or nutmeg or gosh darn any spice you are in the mood for.

Once you make the decision on salty or sweet and have seasoned them up, pop them in the oven and stick around. It won’t take long–ten minutes or so. Shake the cookie sheet  occasionally to keep the seeds from sticking.  Before long, you’ll hear them start to pop a little and you’ll see them get golden. When that happens, take them out of the oven and remove them from the cookie sheet to stop them from continuing to roast. Store them in an airtight container. In our house, that isn’t too important since we seem to eat them all within a day or so. Enjoy!

I love Halloween. It’s one of the holidays that I have fond memories of from my youth and that I still enjoy as an adult. And sometimes I think about how things have changed from when I was a kid for the worse. But the other day I was presented with a new tradition, and, boy, do I like it!

The hubs came home and saw an orange bag on the porch. In it was candy and these two notes:

and

We had been Booed. I had never heard of this before. And here was my dilemma: It’s candy. From a stranger. Do I enjoy it or toss it as too suspect? Well, we ate it! But only after Wendy at Southern Mom told us that this is a new tradition and that the treat was placed there, most likely, by a neighbor of ours. Well, now here’s a tradition I can really get behind! Candy given and received without any real expectation. A simple act of anonymous kindness.

I LOVE our neighborhood. Have I mentioned this before? We have great neighbors–many of which are over 65 years old. There are some small children, but not many. We all look out for each other, say hi to one another and know everyone’s name (that’s kinda easy ’cause there are three Georges surrounding us!). So the idea of giving back to this community really excites me.

Here’s how this Booing thing works (as per the notes left with it): You post the Phantom’s picture in your window so as not to get Booed again. Then you Boo three more of your neighbors within 24 hours and include in their treat the notes to keep it going. So now I am on the look-out to see the Phantom in everyone’s window by Halloween. Here’s our lout ready to be placed:

Haven’t been Booed? Why not start it off in your neighborhood? I promise it will make you feel gooey in the middle (or at least the candy will feel that way).

Oh, and while I am on the topic, I cannot mention Halloween and my neighbors without adding these pics:

These pictures really do not do this house justice. These folks go ALL OUT for Halloween (only to outdo themselves for Christmas–more on that later). They simply MUST have a storage unit somewhere to store all their decorations. That, or someone is sleeping with the Grim Reaper.

Have your own trick or treat story to tell? Post about it and leave a link to your post here with Mr. Linky so we can all go “trick or treating” online!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

I can barely contain myself as I write this: I have finished knitting my blanket. Finished! Even my last thread has been woven in. It is complete. To get an idea of the monster of this thing, I cast on 182 stitches (just under four feet wide) on 52″ size 9 needles–and knit for six feet. Plus I messed up and ripped back about a foot and re-knit it. So by my math, thats 6.5 (feet) plus 1 (foot ripped and redone) times 12 (inches) times 4 (rows per inch) times 182 (stitches per row), or 61,152 stitches. Holy crap, that’s a lot of knitting!

It took a year to knit it. And in that year, I discovered I was pregnant, went through my entire pregnancy, delivered my first child, and enjoyed her first four months of life. All that is knit into this blanket. All the joys, all the worries, all the discoveries, all the love. That is the gift of knitting. Oh, and having a cool blanket when you are done, too. Here’s a picture of a small part of it:

Wonder what I’ll start next. . . . Booties? Socks? A scarf for a friend’s child? Another blanket? HAHAHA! Maybe in another 37 years I’ll knit another blanket. A baby blanket. For my grand baby. Oh, the possibilities are endless. . . . But I think I’ll start with these Baby Mary Jane booties for Sun:

Wendy tagged me for this meme. Here goes:

4 jobs I’ve had: PBX Operator and Front Desk Sales Representative (known as an FDSR, catchy, heh?) at 2 hotels in New Orleans, a sales clerk at a hardware store (TrueValue rocks!), a law clerk at two law firms, then a lawyer at two law firms with a stint of consulting at a CPA firm thrown in there.

4 movies I could watch over and over: Harold and Maude (good soundtrack, too), Arthur (favorite movie EVER–I can quote almost the whole thing: “Girls, girls, girls. I love girls. Bitterman, stop the car!” Want me to continue?), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (love the book, too) and Ed Wood (instantly turned me into a Johnny Depp fan).  Why do all of my favorite movies have names of people in them???
4 TV shows I watch: The Office (reminds me of my time spent at the CPA firm), Top Chef, Heroes, and Best Week Ever.

4 places I have lived: New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Gainesville (FL) and Metairie (LA). I am a NOLA woman–love it, can leave it but can never stay away.

4 foods I love: savory, salty, seafood, and coffee. That’s good enough, right?

4 favorite colors: (why is this important?) lavender, pink, red and brown.

4 places I would love to be right now: NYC, home on my sofa (wait, I am there! Lucky me!), Denver, and NYC (yes, I love NYC enough to list it twice).

4 names I love but could/would not use for my children: Genevieve (too long, and I don’t like Ginny), Eloise (too close to another name already in the family), Randsom and Anastasia (ok, those last two were favorite names of a friend of mine and I am stealing them since I am at a loss).

I am tagging the following four bloggers: Bayou Belle over at My Bayou View, Joanne over at The Laidback Buddhist, Katie over at Overflowing Brain, and Sunny over at Babble From a First Time Mom.

I was a member of Greenpeace back in the 80s. They had checks printed on recycled paper well before anyone else. And even though I had a minimum wage job, I paid for my membership and my checks and was proud to support a greener world.And in law school, I still clearly remember the day I got into a huge argument with a friend just before class about Earth Day. He believed the hole in the ozone layer was propaganda, and the gist of my argument was, “What harm is to you to not use aerosols? To recycle paper? Plastic? If you won’t do it for yourself, won’t you do it to be sure the world will be here for your children? Your grandchildren?” It was an ugly argument. People left the room. And most who heard it thought I was a tree-hugging extremist.

I wish I was still as impassioned as I was a decade ago. I don’t even use recycled checks anymore. And since Katrina, there is currently no recycling of trash going on at all in my home. I am disappointed in myself.

I do reuse things–we are using many borrowed and second-hand items for Sun. And I pass on magazines and books that I read. Better than that, I use the public library regularly and try not to buy books.  I use a coffee mug instead of plastic cups in the office, and I even use the recycled grocery bags instead of the disposable ones. We do not buy bottled water–we use a Brita filter instead. And I DO NOT drive an SUV–the hubs and I both drive small, gas-efficient cars–and neither two dogs, a cat nor a baby will change that.

But it isn’t enough. Rekindling my Yoga practice has reminded me of the yamas, the rules for living virtuously. And one yama, asteya, provides for non-coveting, taking only what one needs and no more. In an America consumed with consumerism, this rule can easily get lost. Keeping up with the Jones’ has been brought to a new level.

So my endeavor as I work the physical aspects of Yoga is to likewise work on asteya. And my hope is that this heightened awareness will be reflected in how I treat the environment. I’ll start with stopping my use of the plastic-laden floss picks that I love and return to the use of just plain dental floss. Sometimes its the small things we do collectively that CAN make a difference.

I was fishing around on my iPod for some tunes. I was tired of my playlists and just couldn’t settle on an artist or album. Then I saw “shuffle” as an option. I’d forgotten I’d had this option. I pushed it and waited. And out came the Traveling Wilburys. I was happy. Then came ABBA, the Allman Brothers, Big Sun, the Police, Elton John (two songs back to back), the Cars, the Police again, and on and on.

With each new song, I thought to myself, “Oh, I love this song!” And as each song ended, the anticipation of the next rose–would I like it, too? And I did! And then it occurred to me that its MY iPod, of course I should love each and every song in it. But there is something special about hearing all of your favorite songs collected randomly for you to hear. It’s like the perfect radio station. I mean, with a playlist, you know the next song coming up. You may love it, but it isn’t spontaneous.

And so today I reminded myself how good I am at picking songs I love. I have never been so happy to get on the road to have to drive for an hour. That was the highlight of my day.

Now for the lowlight. Thursday is one of the days that I work from home and Sun is with me. Except that today I had to go to Baton Rouge for a Continuing Legal Education program. And don’t you know that not only does Sun roll from her back to her front (which she’s done for three days now without me seeing it) but she also rolled from her front to her back. Yeah. While I sit in a classroom listening about declaring a person mentally incompetent and CS stays with her. Sometimes working and being a mom really, really suck.