Normally it takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 90 minutes to make my bacon-grease roux.
On Sunday, February 24, during test-cook No. 1 for the Gladiators of Gumbo cookoff, it took 18 minutes. 18 minutes!
I managed to brown my roux and assemble a palatable version of Pat and Stacy’s Thanksgiving Day Gumbo in 3 hours, 18 minutes, 56 seconds, while cooking for the very first time over an open flame on my new Bayou Classic Outdoor Gas Cooker… and I didn’t burn the house down. Although technically, it took me 22 hours and 58 minutes to cook all of it – since I really started on Saturday at 2:20 PM when I pulled my 24-pound turkey from the brine, popped it in a 350-degree oven and commenced three thrilling hours of bird-flipping, vegetable-chopping, sausage-grilling and okra-snotting, and truth be told, I forgot the okra-snotting until Sunday morning (add that one to the checklist!)
My television viewing habits have bled into my hobbies: I started watching Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo way back in 2005 and subsequently threw up all over myself at the World Series of Poker and finished seventh in the Arizona Women’s State Poker Championship. I turned my attention to Miami Ink on Discovery Channel in 2007 and ended up in New Orleans with a fleur de lys tramp stamp.
Thank God I’m not a fan of Dancing with the Stars or America’s Got Talent… but I do watch BBQ Pitmasters on Destination America and Chopped on Food Network, so it came as no surprise to my sweet husband when I proclaimed, “I want to enter a gumbo cookoff.”
“Sounds good,” he replied calmly. I was surprised that he didn’t offer anymore pushback… until I realized he was probably more shocked than relieved that he hadn’t been smacked with: “I’d really like to start cooking pharmaceutical-grade meth in an underground lab.”
Or perhaps: “Man, I’ve got an itch to go hunt zombies with a crossbow.”
I photo-bombed a Supreme Court Justice – and not just any member of the black-robed superstars of jurisprudence: The very first woman to hold the position of Supreme Court Justice of the United States – the Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor.
StoryCorps, the national initiative that invites people from all walks of life to interview one another and share the stories of their lives, has parked its humble Airstream in Phoenix this spring. The NPR member-station I represent, KJZZ 91.5 FM is hosting the visit. We invited Justice O’Connor to record an interview for the kick-off celebration and media day.
And I stood there looking like a dork in the background of an official station photo opportunity. See for yourself.
Looking like a complete doofus with FWOTSC
She arrived in a dusty Dodge Ram pickup truck. Her son Scott drove her. They arrived promptly at 1:30. He called her Mom.
He called her Mom! Not your Honor. Not your Majesty. Not your Supremacy. Just Mom. “Well, Mom and I…” and “Mom does this ~” and “Mom does that ~” and “Mom blah-blah-blah ~”
Not like me who stood there slack-jawed and didn’t even managed to introduce myself, or throw myself at her feet, or offer up the grateful thanks of a nation for her service and fortitude. No, I pretty much committed the cardinal sin of radio: Dead air. Starstruck silence. Frozen awkwardness. Duuuuuhhhhhh.
Granted, I think my employers probably appreciated my lack of genuflection… until they posted the photos online and realized their salesperson was photo-bombing a Supreme Court Justice.
And now I have a large, black, antenna-festooned SUV parked indiscreetly on my cul de sac… and I may not have a job anymore.
Instead, I just have a painful photographic reminder of yet another brush with greatness.
