Recipe: Gumbo

I am not from the south.  Missoula is probably about as close to the opposite side of the country as you can get from Louisiana.  I do not claim to know the best recipe for gumbo; I don't even claim to make anything authentic.  All I know is that I love gumbo, and when the right ingredients are available, I make it the best I can.

The first time I made gumbo, I wasn't even in the U.S.  We spent several months in Spain after we got married, and this is where I taught myself many American recipes.  I would have never learned to make gumbo in the U.S., because I would have just gone to The Dinosaur Cafe and bought a bowl.  When living abroad it is easy to gravitate towards foods that seem like home.  Even when those foods would be uncommon for you normally.

These days I only make gumbo when I can find fresh okra.  The first times I made it without okra.  It just wasn't possible to find any in our neighborhood in northern Madrid.  A couple times I have made it with frozen okra.  One time in Greece, when I spotted okra for the first time in Europe, and once in Montana, when we were given a free bag of frozen okra.  Otherwise, if I don't find fresh okra, I don't make it.

There are a million recipes for gumbo out there, and everybody has their own idea of how it should be.  To me, gumbo should not be a light dish.  Making a really good roux, in my opinion, requires quite some fat.  But what you use and how you cook the gumbo depends on what you like and what your dietary restrictions are.  If you can not or do not eat some of these ingredients, then make adjustments.  Throughout the recipe, I mention some changes you can make.

Ingredients:

• Chicken (500g/1lb)
• Sausage (350g/12oz)
• Shrimp (200g/7oz)
• 1 large Onion (chopped)
• 4 cloves Garlic (minced)
• 4 stalks Celery (sliced)
• 1 Green bell pepper (chopped)
• Flour (3 large spoonfuls)
• Chicken broth (700ml/3 cups)
• Thyme (small bunch fresh)
• Bay leaves (3-4)
• Parsley (small bunch fresh)
• Cayenne or other chilies *Optional*
• salt and pepper
• Fresh okra (350g/12oz) [If you don't use okra - make more roux than specified here (2x)]

The Prep Work:

For my gumbo I use: chicken, pork sausage, and sometimes shrimp.  In this case, I bought chicken legs.  Sometimes I use chicken breast, but let's face it, chicken legs are much more flavorful.  Andouille sausage is preferred, but substitutions are fine.  I have used anything from spicy Italian to plain pork sausage (above).  The only types I avoid are those with paprika or other spices that might conflict with those added to the gumbo.  

I skinned, deboned, and cut the chicken into small pieces.  I always salt my chicken lightly before cooking.  If you are going the fat-rich route (like I do), you can save the skin and bones.  Cut the sausage into small pieces.

Put the chicken in a large heated pot with a little olive oil.  I put the bones and skin as well, because I want as much of the chicken fat to accumulate in the pan.  If you are going light and don't want the fat, you can disregard the skin and bones.

Remove the chicken meat - leaving the bones and skin a while longer - and add the sausage.  Stir gently until cooked.

Remove the sausage from the pot.  Put the chicken and sausage aside for later.  The bones and skin of the chicken can be thrown out, or could be used to make the broth in a pot with some water.  

DO NOT GET RID OF THE ACCUMULATED FAT IN THE BOTTOM OF THE POT!  

Unless you are going for a low-fat gumbo, you will need this fat to make the roux.

Cut all the vegetables (except the okra).

Saute the vegetables until soft and the onions are translucent.  Set aside.

The Roux:

We are now going to start with the roux.  The roux is the base flavor and thickening agent of the gumbo.  It is basically a burnt bechamel.  To make the roux, you need a fat and flour.  We are using the fat reserved from cooking the meat.  If you want you can just use some olive oil, butter, or a mix, but it won't be as flavorful.

(For more information about the art of making bechamel, see our recipe)

Heat the fat on medium-low heat and add three large heaping spoonfuls of flour.

Stir the flour and the fat until they are completely mixed and bubbling.

As the flour starts to brown, stir constantly.  Watch your heat level.  You do not want the flour to burn, just get slowly toasted.  This part of the process is very important and determines what kind of gumbo you will have in the end.  If you want a milder flavor, you can toast it lightly and have a blonde gumbo.  If you want a really strong flavor, toast it for longer and have a blacker gumbo.  I prefer to have something in the middle.

I toast my roux until it is a dark caramel color.

Once you have a roux that is the color you want, it is time to add the broth.  Heat the broth so that it will incorporate into the flour and fat mixture more smoothly.  You have to add the water a little at a time, each time stirring rapidly to get the mixture to an even consistency.  Do not add more than a few spoonfuls of liquid in the beginning, or you will get lumpy roux. 

After adding one cup (235ml) of broth, the roux will be the consistency of apple butter.

After two cups (470ml) of broth, the roux will be smooth and thick like a rich gravy (though I would not suggest it for such a use).

By the time you have added three cups of broth, it should be pretty watered down.  At this point you can add all the cooked meat and vegetables to the pot, and top off with water.  

Get the pot simmering.

The gumbo will seem fairly watery at this point, but don't despair!  It will thicken as it simmers, and the addition of okra later on will make it even thicker.  If you are not able to find okra, make more roux in the beginning.  The more roux you have, the thicker the final product will be.

If the final product is still not thick enough for your tastes, make more roux in another pot, add broth from the main pot to make it smooth, and then incorporate it with the soup in the main pot.  Easy as that.

Add the fresh thyme, bay leaves, and fresh parsley to the pot.  You will take these out later before serving the gumbo.  If you want your gumbo spicy, you can add a crushed dried chili at this time.  For our tastes, one single cayenne chili is sufficient.  It makes the gumbo a little spicy, but doesn't overpower the other flavors.  If you prefer to add a fresh chili, it is advisable to add earlier with the onion and other vegetables.  

You can also add salt and pepper at this time.  If you salted the raw chicken before cooking, be wary of how much salt you add at the end.

Let the pot simmer with the herbs for 3/4 of an hour or so.  If you are cooking the gumbo for the next day, you can let it cool after simmering and finish it right before serving.  If you are eating the gumbo the same day, you can prepare the okra.

Okra is one of the oddest vegetables I've ever used.  Originally from Africa, it has made its way into cuisine all over the world.  When the fruits are cut open, several seeded chambers are revealed.  The plants are mucilaginous, so shortly after cutting a clear gooey slime begins to seep from the cut ends.  This goo assists with the thickening of the gumbo.

Before adding the okra to the pot, I prefer to saute it in a little oil first.  During this initial cooking, the okra becomes covered in its own slime.

As you stir the okra in the pan, you will see the slime forming strands between the pieces.

You do not need to cook it for long in the pan.  Just heat it up, then add it to the pot with the rest of the ingredients.  At this point you can also add the shrimp.  With this particular pot of gumbo I did not use shrimp.  Normally I would cook them in their shells, peel them, and add them at the end.

Let the pot simmer for 15 minutes or so.  You will see the gumbo thicken from the addition of the okra.

At this point your gumbo is ready to eat.  We always eat ours served over a bed of rice.

Buen provecho!

NYC

In the weeks, days, hours before our departure to New York City I felt a deep angst regarding our arrival.  The fear was completely unreasonable.  I have spent weeks navigating large populated cities, and I have never felt so stressed.  I think about the time I spent in the Distrito Federal, a city with comparable population, and I never felt concerned.  My time in Paris and Madrid were never accompanied by anxiety.  Naples and Athens - smaller but very chaotic cities - caused worry for our car, but nothing else.  Why then did New York City induce such trepidation?



You would think it was just the stress I was feeling about getting ready to leave the country, but it wasn't.  I was generally very excited about leaving.  It was something deeper.

As a person from a small city located in inland America, my image of New York is shaped by the media.  New York brings to mind the many books, films, and television programs that are set in the shadow of its mighty skyscrapers.  The city ceases to be real for a person who has never visited.  It becomes so fantastic that the people, places, and stories seem imaginary.

Just like Paris, I knew my preconceived notions about New York would be completely changed after arriving.  There was just no reason for me to feel the way I did.



Our flight took most of the day.  We had purchased tickets at a good rate, so the route was not direct.  We first flew to Seattle, where we spent a couple hours waiting for our next flight.  The flight to Newark was delayed several times over the next hours.  We were already arriving very late in the evening, and with the delays we would be arriving even later.

For two weeks before our departure we contacted couch hosts in the city.  Our endeavors were fruitless.  Many people never wrote back, and those that did could not host.  There was a couple hopeful replies, but in the end they did not work out.

  

Eventually we decided to use an old trick of ours.  It is common for couchsurfing to be complicated in big cities like New York.  These places are very popular to visit, and the couch hosts get dozens of requests each day.  They are so flooded with people, it is not easy to get someone to reply.  The best thing to do in situations like this is search in the towns outside the main city.

We sent some requests a little further away in New Jersey, and we got a hit!  A man living in a suburb with his family gladly requested us, and we began a series of emails back and forth.  We were relieved to find such a nice host - he even offered to pick us up at the airport despite our late arrival.

Ultimately, he was not able to pick us up with all the delays our flight had.  We arrived in Newark at about one in the morning.  We grabbed our stuff and began the search for transportation.  Originally, we wanted to use Uber, but this did not work out.  There was no internet in the airport, and we did not have any sim in the phone.

We found a taxi that was not unreasonably priced, and headed to our hosts house.  He texted us to let us know he was waiting inside.  When we arrived, we were very glad to have such a warm welcome despite us arriving later than expected.  He showed us our room and bid us goodnight.

The next morning we were awoken by the sweet voice of a tiny little girl.  We came out to the kitchen where the family was having breakfast, and we ate the small amount of food we had.  They gave us some information about how to get into the center, and once we were ready to go, we were off to Manhattan.

Arriving in Port Authority, our first goal was to get some sort of map.  We already had a very good idea of what we wanted to do in the city.  Many years ago, when Javier was in his twenties, he lived in New York so he could learn English.  We had discussed several times what we wanted to see.  We just needed to get our bearings.

Our first interaction in the city was with a security guard at Port Authority.  We asked him if there was any information or tourist office.  He responded by asking us why we wanted it, and when we told him we wanted a map, he frowned.  "You won't get a map at any of the offices."  Then he whipped a map out of his jacket pocket, and wished us a good time in the city.

Setting out from Port Authority, we began our adventure.  Stepping out into the shaded streets was torture.  The days we spent in New York were brutally cold, with a wind that would slice through to the bone.  The unfortunate thing for us is that we really prefer to see a city by walking.

On our first day, we walked around Manhattan between 23rd Street and 75th Street.  Starting in Times Square, we made our way down to the Flatiron Building by way of Bryant Park and then Broadway.  We then went back north along 5th Avenue to the Empire State Building.  We discussed briefly whether we wanted to pay the exorbitant amount charged to see the building, and decided that it was an opportunity well worth the price.

Because of Javier's disability, we had an expedited arrival to the 80th floor.  We did not need to wait in any line to go through security, or get our tickets.  They just bumped us up to the front, we paid, and got in the elevator to see the historical exhibit.  Since the price was more than we like to pay for such touristic things, we decided to take our time in the exhibit and learn as much as we could.

If we had not taken our time and we had jumped at the opportunity to walk up the stairs to the 86th floor observatory, we would have actually made it there.  After we finished with our audio tour, we got in line for the elevator, hoping there would soon be another opportunity to take the stairs.  This was not the case.

After a while of waiting in a line that was going nowhere, a woman came down and announced that there would be no more elevators up to the 86th floor and the stairs were closed.  There was obviously something wrong.  They told us a pipe had burst, and flooding was preventing anyone from going to the observatory.  Given the option to leave and come back the next days when the flooding was fixed, we decided our time was better spent on the street than hoping the elevators would be put into action. 

As we left, we walked past the elevators and saw the problem.  There was a steady stream of water pouring out through the cracks in the door.  It was definitely better for us to leave; they were not going to have the problem fixed in a reasonable amount of time.

We got down to the street and went for some lunch.  We got a pretty good cup of soup and a sandwich for quite cheap - our favorite kind of meal.  We continued walking along 5th Avenue, then we changed over to Park Avenue.  By the time we got up to 59th street, it was beginning to get late. 

Cutting across towards the park, we took a short stop at Tiffany's.  There must be millions of young women who think of Tiffany's from the film adaptation of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's.  I am one of them.  My mother had even given me Capote's book as a birthday present before I left (it is remarkably different from the movie I must add).  I just had to go in, but it was utterly disappointing.  I'm afraid the items in the store are not really my taste; they were downright ugly.

Walking into the park, the sun began to set.  We made it all the way up to the Bethesda Fountain and the Loeb Boathouse before we turned back.

It got dark about the time we left the southern edge of the park.  We needed to get back to our host's house for dinner, so we began to walk down 5th Avenue.  Our pace was quick, but we managed to enjoy St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, and the brilliant night Times Square.

It was not too late when we arrived back at the house.  They had made a wonderful treat for us; they cooked a whole octopus and put it on the grill when we arrived.  Absolutely delicious.  We made a Tortilla de Patatas - as usual.  A lovely meal.

Understandably, we were exhausted from all our walking and passed out rather quickly that night.  It was good that we slept so soundly, because our second day was just as taxing.

Arriving at Port Authority again, we jumped on the subway and made our way out to Brooklyn Heights.  This was a wonderful way to start the day.  Walking along the promenade, the sun was shining and it was much warmer than the previous day.  We took our time and enjoyed the much improved weather.

Getting up onto the bridge, we continued our walk.  We met some German tourists and exchanged the favor of taking some photos.  Being on the bridge was nice, because there was no buildings to obscure the sun.  When we got into the financial district, it was much colder in the shade.

We walked down to Wall Street.  Since there are no tours allowed of the Stock Exchange since the September 11th attacks, there really isn't much to do there.  We continued our walk west towards the former site of the Twin Towers.

As always, I was starving and began to notice any and every opportunity to get food.  We eventually walked past this little pizza shop.  There were some great combinations, and we each got a slice.  Walking and eating, we finally arrived at the Twin Towers memorial.

The Twin Towers memorial is two enormous fountains the size of the buildings' footprints.  These are so deep, and constructed in such a way, that it is not possible to see the bottom.  To me, they were an interesting depiction of the emotion evoked by the site.  But, to many of the residents of New York, they are a wasteful use of water and electricity.

It is always interesting to see people in these places taking smiling portraits.  As if visiting a place such as this is a happy occasion.  You see this everywhere - even places like Auschwitz.  Our host told us later that, even when the rubble of the buildings was still smoking, you could find people taking photos in front of the site.  It is hard to understand the thought process - or lack of.  It is a little sickening.



Continuing our walk north, we crossed through Tribeca and made our way up to Canal Street.  There, we explored Chinatown and Little Italy before taking the subway back up to the Empire State Building. 

Since we were unable to visit the observatory the day before, we thought it would be good to visit again in the evening.  If we could get up before dark, then we could get photos in the light, at sunset, and after dark.  Our arrival to the top was again expedited.  It probably only took us 15 minutes total to get to the observatory.  Since we already had a ticket, they just took us straight to the elevator up to the 80th floor.  When we arrived there we did not need to spend any time in the exhibit, and we were lucky enough that they opened the stairs right as we arrived. 

Our plan worked perfectly.  We got photos of the city in both the light and at night.  It is probably good there was a flood the day before, because the night photos were much more spectacular than any we could have taken during the day.

We stayed a couple hours at the observatory.  Time went by fast as we watched the lights of the city.  Eventually, we had to go so we could go back to the house for dinner.  We walked across town to Port Authority and took a bus back to New Jersey.

Our last day in New York, we checked our bags at the Greyhound in Port Authority so we would not need to go back to New Jersey before heading to JFK.  Our day was not the most productive.  We needed to mail something and the post office we chose to enter was excessively slow.  Once we were done there, we started heading towards the Metropolitan Museum.

What little time we had left before we needed to go to the airport, we wanted to spend in the museum.  We were very strategic in our tour; focusing on those sections we thought were most interesting.  Our main interests were the Egyptian and Arab exhibits.  I really wanted to see the costume exhibit, but they were between different shows.

We stayed in the Museum until the last possible minute.  Our journey back to Port Authority to get our bags and get on the subway was intense.  We walked briskly, taking the example of natives and j-walking when safe.  The combination of our pace and a shortcut across the park got us back to the bus station in record time.

On the subway, we got a final taste of New York.  First, an older man came up to Javier thinking he was someone else.  Even after Javier corrected him, the man stayed to chat with us for a while.  Turns out he had lived in Spain.  He was very excited to chat with Javier.  At the same time, two kids dressed in identical clothing got on the train.  With a little Michael Jackson as accompaniment, the two boys performed a flawless choreography along the center aisle.  It was a good way to depart.

From then on our ride to JFK was uneventful, but tiresome.  Our bags were extremely heavy - we had so much packed for our trip to Africa - and we were tired from the past three days of walking.  When we finally checked the biggest bag and got our tickets, we were relieved to be on our way back to Spain.

Now onto current events...

Thank you for your dedication during the previous months.  Until now, all our stories have been from years past.  Because I am a bit of a perfectionist, I couldn't stand to leave all those stories untold.  Indeed there are many we have not written here, and the ones we did write are not perfect.  We may write more about our travels in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe, but from now on you can expect new and current stories.

We are now planning an overland trip through Africa.  Over the next weeks we will explain our preparations.  We believe it is important to share our experience with getting visas and preparing our vehicle, so that others can learn from our struggles and triumphs.  As soon as we are ready, we will do our best to write about our travels.

Thank you for your patronage, and keep visiting the site to see what we are up to!

Rafting the Alberton Gorge

In the late summer of 2013, I ran into my old professor from forestry school at a memorial gathering for a friend.  We had become close over the years.  He was my advisor for several long-term independent study projects for the Montana Arboretum.  More importantly he had assisted me and Javier with our struggle to get Javier's resident visa - a favor not given by just anyone.

When we reconnected at the memorial, he invited us to go rafting with him the next weekend.  It was a very long time since I had gone rafting.  Javier had never been, so I was happy to accept.  We met them on the edge of town days later.  He also invited the school's ecology professor and his wife.  It was a great day on the river.