Sand in the Coffee, Vol. 117: the gumbo, and what a wet weekend is for

Five to seven inches.

That’s how much rain FOX10 says is possible south of I-10 between Thursday and Monday, and every inch of Perdido Key and Orange Beach is south of I-10. Scattered showers Thursday, the heaviest stretch Friday through Sunday, more on Monday, lower chances by Tuesday. Nothing tropical in it. Just a slow front in no hurry to leave.

If you booked this week, I’m sorry. I also have a plan, and the plan is gumbo.

Gumbo is what this coast does with a wet weekend. It takes about three hours, most of them spent standing at a stove holding something cold, and it’s better the second day, which you are going to have.

first, eat one somebody else made

Go at lunch and order a cup, not a bowl. A cup tells you everything you need to know and costs less to be wrong about.

Here’s how to read what shows up:

The color is the roux. Roux is flour cooked in fat and stirred until it browns, and it’s where most of the flavor and body come from. Peanut-butter colored is nutty and light. Milk-chocolate colored is deeper and toastier. A gumbo the color of dishwater is soup with ambitions.

Seafood, or chicken and sausage. On the coast, the usual pot is seafood: shrimp, often crab, sometimes oysters. Chicken and andouille (a smoked Cajun pork sausage) is the inland cousin, and nobody should be embarrassed to order it.

The thickener tells you who taught the cook. Some use okra, some use filé (ground dried sassafras leaves), some use the roux alone. If there’s tomato in it, the cook leans Creole; if not, usually Cajun. People have stopped speaking to each other over this. You’re on vacation. You don’t have to pick.

Rice goes in the bowl. A scoop of potato salad in the bowl is a south Louisiana habit, and it’s better than it sounds. If someone at your table looks horrified, they’re not from there.

The one question worth asking your server: “What’s in today’s pot?” A kitchen that makes its own will tell you, in some detail, with some pride.

then make one

Your rental kitchen has one thin stockpot, a nonstick pan with a past, and a wooden spoon somebody once used for paint. That’s enough.

Shop Thursday, before the heavy rain. For 6 to 8 people:

• 2 pounds of shell-on Gulf shrimp from a seafood market (ask for Gulf shrimp by name; the shells are your stock)
• 1 pound of andouille or other smoked sausage
• 2 onions, 1 green bell pepper, 3 or 4 ribs of celery. That’s the “holy trinity,” and nearly every pot starts there.
• a head of garlic, green onions, parsley, bay leaves, a jar of Cajun seasoning
• 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of vegetable oil
• a box of chicken stock as backup, rice, and filé if the store has it

Stock, 30 minutes. Peel the shrimp and put them back in the fridge. Shells go into the pot with about 8 cups of water, the onion ends and the celery tops. Simmer 20 to 30 minutes and strain into a bowl. It beats the box. Rinse the pot; you’ll need it again.

Roux, 45 minutes to an hour. Oil and flour in the heaviest pot you have, medium-low heat, stirring the whole time and scraping the corners. It goes blond, then peanut butter, then copper penny, then milk chocolate. Stop at milk chocolate your first time. Black specks or a burnt smell means it’s gone; throw it out and start over. Everyone who makes gumbo has done this at least once. If the pot is thin, turn the heat down and give it fifteen more minutes. Hot roux sticks to skin and burns badly (cooks call it Cajun napalm), so the kids stay out of the kitchen for this part.

The pot, about an hour and a quarter. When the roux is the color you want, dump in the chopped trinity. It’ll hiss, and it stops the roux from getting any darker. Stir for 5 minutes, add the garlic and the sliced sausage, then the stock a ladle at a time while you stir. Two bay leaves, a couple of teaspoons of seasoning. Simmer an hour, uncovered, skimming off the oil that rises. Salt at the end, since the sausage and the seasoning bring their own.

Shrimp, 5 minutes, at the very end. In they go until they’re pink and curled, then the pot comes off the heat. Shrimp that simmer for an hour turn into pencil erasers. Green onions and parsley on top, rice in the bowl, gumbo over the rice, filé at the table.

That’s dinner for the house, and tomorrow’s lunch for whoever gets to the fridge first.

the rest of the weekend

Rain doesn’t close the beach, but storms can change the flags in an afternoon. Check /beach-today/ each morning before anybody walks down, and get off the sand at the first thunder, not the first raindrop. Between showers, the live cam will tell you whether the beach is worth putting shoes on for, without putting shoes on.

Outdoor plans are already moving. Foley’s Tacos & Tequila Festival, set for this weekend, is now November 7 and 8, so check /events/ before you drive anywhere. And if a road has water across it and you can’t see the pavement, don’t find out how deep it is. The National Weather Service’s line is “Turn around, don’t drown,” and they’ve earned the right to be blunt about it.

By Tuesday the rain chances fall off and the Gulf goes back to being the Gulf. You’ll have a quart of something in the fridge that tastes like you live here. That isn’t a ruined week. It’s the week the locals were having anyway.

— Chris

P.S. Owners: if your kitchen makes its own gumbo, put the days it’s on your page, along with your specials and menu link. Claiming the page is free: /submit/claim/