Gumbo

Mark Carrington's Latest Gumbo

I love gumbo. Especially the Cajun kind prevalent in New Orleans. The best gumbo I've had so far was in New Orleans, at Commander's Palace. The second best was from a Korean lunch counter on N. Carrolton.

My friend Mark decided around six months ago to learn how to make gumbo. So far, I've attended two gumbo sessions at his house, and can attest that the second was an improvement (not a vast improvement, but an improvement still) on the first. I think the difference is the roux.

The roux. Of course, that's always the thing in gumbo. Making gumbo, at least in New Orleans, is a huge point of pride. Family recipes are guarded tightly, memorized and never written down, passed along maternal lines, etc. The most popular is the kind with sausage and shrimp, my personal favorite. But anything will do. It's a gumbo- a mixture of ingredients, the great metaphor of race and culture in life. And all good gumbo starts with a roux.

The first gumbo Mark made used the oven method to cook his roux. I saw this originally on the Food Network. Alton Brown used this as his foolproof, go- to, never fail, works great every time method. In short, you bake the oil and flour for around two hours.

And I have to say it was one smooth roux. But hey- two, maybe two and a half hours? No matter, though- the gumbo was just fine.

The next time, however, was near perfection. This time he used butter and flour and tended his stove very closely. After twenty or so minutes he was preciding over a fine sauce, into which he began ladling broth.

About an hour later we were eating Mark's Andouille sausage gumbo. No shrimp this time, but no matter- a gumbo to make a man proud. I ate three helpings.

Today I watched Chef John Besh make his signature gumbo, a combination of a family recipe with that of an early mentor d' cuisine. Chef Besh use cooking oil for his roux. And let it get a deep brown. He made it look easy, which it is, I guess. To him.

Two Christmas's ago I was in New Orleans (see: Xmas in a Primitive Land) and all the bartenders and little dive managers were making gumbo on hot plates in the back of the venue. "Taste this" they'd say. "What do you think?"

It all tasted great to me, and I told them so. What could I add to someone's great aunt's maid's recipe?

I hate the prevalence of the term "bucket list", but that's the boomer generation for you. Those of us who grew up in the era the Dymo labeller feel compelled to use it on everything. But I sure would like to master a good pot of gumbo before me+ death= no more gumbo.

And, by good, I mean, like "Hey, Bret's having gumbo tonight! Drop everything, gang!" type of good.

Of course, to do that, I'd have to actually do it. Hmmm... there's an idea.

Esquerita!!

What else is there to say?

Woody Sounding Clarinet

Is it just me, or does Woody Allen suck on clarinet?

I was watching a biography of him on TV last night and they showed him playing his regular Dixie- land gig at the Carlyle Hotel, former home of Bobby Short, the effeminate pianist and Cole Porter interpreter.

In the snippet they showed, Allen played a) off key, b) sloppily) c) with very poor embouchure and d) stiffly. I may be leaving out some letters, but that's enough.

Here's what I mean:



That's awful.

But there he is, gigging away to a full house of rapt listeners hanging on every note in a very prestigious venue. Is anyone really listening?

Clearly this is a case of the Emperor's New Clothes- people think he must be good since he's Woody Allen, But all he's really doing is masturbating. On your dime.

Nothing against Woody, mind you- he's a very entertaining filmmaker.

Just a talentless clarinetist.

Goodbye, Larry Hoppen (1951- 2012)

It's difficult to believe I won't see Larry again. A year ago, we played together on the final day of the Salty Dog Reunion in Ithaca New York. Prior to that, I hadn't seen him in almost forty years.


Larry achieved rock immortality by singing the Orleans' hit, "Still the One" and "Dance With Me", both written by John Hall, Orleans' guiding force and his then- wife Johanna. 

We knew each other in Ithaca NY, in the early 1970's, and although we were never in the same groups, we played together fairly often, especially when he was a member of Boffalongo, a group famous in Ithaca for originating "Dancing in the Moonlight." Larry was the guitar player, singer, sometime keyboard player and even trumpet player in the band. 

When he left town to join Orleans, with Boffalongo band mate Wells Kelly (Wells' brother Sherman, also in Boffalongo, wrote Dancing in the Moonlight),  they returned frequently to Ithaca to play at The Salty Dog, a newly opened bar with a dock right outside, where you could moor your boat and drink a beer. I'm not sure anyone ever did that, but you could if you had a boat and liked beer.

After I left Ithaca, in 1973, I rarely saw Larry. One day I googled him, wrote to his address and we rekindled our long distance friendship. 

Larry Hoppen died last week at the age of 61. He was a few months older than I am. He left a wife and twin daughters. His voice still rings out on oldies stations around the world every day.

Now, amazingly, I'll never speak to, or play with him again.

He was the most musical person, blessed with an incredible ear, a virtuoso on any instrument he chose to play and a unique and powerful vocalist, the kind of talent comes along rarely in any generation. 

Being accepted by Larry as a fellow musician was a moment for me, way back there in Ithaca, when I knew that I was no longer just practicing, I was playing.

The night I found out Larry was gone, my band played Dancing in the Moonlight in a bar in Washington, DC. In Florida, at New Smyrna Beach, John Hostetter played Dancing in the Moonlight. Huey Lewis told me that he played Dancing in the Moonlight.

How many other musicians, from all over the world, whose lives were touched by Larry throughout the years, played something special this last weekend just to send their friend a message that he will be missed?

My guess is all of them.

Billy Benson Builds a Boat

My friend Bill Benson, artist extraordinaire, lives in my old stomping grounds of Ithaca New York in a simple ranch house on a scenic canal on the south end of town.

The canal as seen from the deck. The gate keeps the deer out.

He and Sadie, his wife of thirty- eight years, enjoy a classic kind of BoHo lifestyle there, in a town where you can still actually live that kind of lifestyle comfortably and elegantly. It's a lifestyle that I aspire to, but have only marginally achieved. However, that's another blog.

Next door to Bill's house, which he finished himself- put in the floors, tiled the bathroom and built a crafty deck outside, is his north- light painting studio.

The studio is mostly on one floor. There's a sleeping loft and a small room with a shower and storage area where Bill keeps his tools, turps and varnishes. A two- story window lights the place during the day and the big room is filled with his art in varying stages of completion and medium. Some paintings are framed, some not. Large canvases dominate, but they are surrounded by smaller paintings, all of which are wonderfully seen, wonderfully drawn and masterfully painted.

A stack of new charcoal drawing lie on a drafting table, each covered with an expensive paper overlay.
The drawings are of cows. I'm not going to attempt to describe them here, except to say that I wanted to own them all as soon as I saw them.

Bill showing the cow charcoals

Next door to the studio is a third building- a large shed, a frame really, covered in that ubiquitous blue tarp material and roofed with transluscent white plastic. Inside the shed, literally filling the structure is a sailboat.

When Bill bought it, several years ago, it was in terrible condition. But over those years he has been lovingly restoring his vessel. He hopes that by this time next year he will be sailing Lake Cayuga in his and Sadie's own boat.

It sleeps two, has a brand new engine (hoisted into place by Bill and Sadie one trying afternoon), a small galley, eco- friendly toilet and white decking. The day we visited, he received a package with some sort of brass part he had commissioned from a drawing he had submitted to a metalworker. It looked like a piece of abstract sculpture- something that would fit in perfectly with the rest of the art in the Benson's house.

the new engine

Once the boat is finished, the shed will be demolished. It was put together around the boat, after all, the way Kodak constructed buildings around their gigantic Kodachrome processing facilities (or so I'd always heard.) Sadie will be happy to see it go. "I'm amazed the neighbors don't complain about it more than they do."

"They've gotten used to it," claims Bill.

And, when the shed comes down, the light will change in Bill's studio. "People will date my work from before the blue tarp came down and after," Bill jokes. "'The slight blue cast inherent in his work prior to to 2013 has disappeared,'" he mock- quotes.

The best part is that when their fellow sailors see Bill and Sadie gliding through the water, they'll be looking at an actual work of art, from the vision of Bill Benson, Ithaca's own fine- art visionary.

Only in New Orleans, # 5,000,002

©2012 by Chris Granger, Times Picayune

Yesterday, during Uncle Lionel Batiste's funeral and wake, someone commented on the realness of the mannequin standing against a potted palm. "That's no mannequin- that's him!" was the reply.

In an effort to make Uncle's sendoff as memorable as everything else in his life, his body was displayed standing up.

Article here: http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2012/07/uncle_lionel_batiste_gets_send.html#incart_river_default

Nature Boy/ Beach Boy

Eden Ahbez visits Brian Wilson in January 1967
Thanks to If Charlie Parker Were a Gunslinger