[Outline of Takeover Plan of US Gov't]

see below for publishers commentary.

[Mark's Gumbo Recipe]

Mark's Gumbo Recipe.

 

This recipe was pioneered in the campground at Stephen Foster State Park in the

Okeefenokee Swamp. Anything tastes good when you're camping, and camping by definition connotes some forethought going into a meal. Allowing for certain advance measures, this dazzling one-pot meal proved as quick and easy as it was popular.

 

In food articles in the big newspapers and in conversations with bonafide Cajuns, I have subsequently learned that what I made was not a true gumbo. It didn't matter then and it doesn't now. Soupier and more more varied in flavor than shrimp creole, this dish probably has a rightful name of its own up the bayou. It had a decided Cajun mood about it, and was the same kind of crowd pleaser as a good pot of spaghetti.

 

Some ingredients:

 

1 1/2 lb fresh or frozen okra

1 lb (or more) peeled boiled shrimp

4 fresh sausages, hot or medium, previously smoked over charcoal

1 29 oz can, tomato pieces

1 large onion, diced

Celery and/or bell pepper if desired

Salt, black pepper and hot red pepper sauce to taste

 

I started by boiling a pot (okay, a 3-lb coffee can) of water, on my 1970 Primus Grasshopper, an early propane camp stove.

 

No, that's not true. I started before I left my indoor, electric range kitchen in civilization. I boiled my shrimp in salty water, peeled them and packed them to travel in the ice chest. I also cooked up rice (you know how much your family will put away) to underlay the forthcoming stew.

 

If you didn't grow up as a backpacking Scout, these preliminaries would be unremarkable. But for a weekend on the trail, the rice would have been transported uncooked for weight considerations, and neither fresh shrimp nor fresh sausage would have been part of the weekend at all.

 

The first night out, we built a charcoal fire and ate some pieces of beef that had marinated for the entire trip down, another benefit of motorized camping. After the steak was cooked, there was plenty of heat left in the charcoal. I set the sausages on the grill and turned them frequently for 30 minutes or so. By this time they were probably done enough to eat, but I let them stay on the fire until bedtime, about four hours.

 

The slow smoking added flavor and a hard texture to the sausage, as it cooked out more of that evil hog fat. I never build a charcoal fire anymore without planning to set out sausage to smoke after the fire has served its short-term purpose. The charcoal is always still there, begging you to do more with it. I have tried out this recipe using pan-cooked, commercially smoked sausage, and the results were simply not up there with slow-smoked sausage. The sausage could be the pivotal feature of this dish.

 

Back to the pot of water: I had fresh okra on this occasion, and cut it into discs about 1/2 in. in thickness, as you would for frying. If you use frozen okra, be sure to get some that's naked, because the frying batter is not part of this recipe. I tossed in the onion and salt and pepper. The volume of water was probably 3 pt. to 2 qt. If I need to tell you how much water to boil okra in, you won't be attempting this recipe anyway.

 

Then I cut up the sausage and dropped it into the boiling okra broth, now beginning to thicken. This would be the time to add any other vegetables such as celery or bell pepper. I recommend against corn, which adds an unwelcome sense of starch to this stew.

 

This decidedly green looking mix stewed for a few minutes, and the sausage flavor cooked out into the general stew. I discovered that even after smoking for four hours, the sausage still had lots of flavorful fat to release into the stew. The results, I can only claim with an admission of dumb luck, were better than words can describe. At this point, all the ingredients that actually required cooking on Gumbo Night were ready.

 

I heated up the previously cooked rice, building a small charcoal fire largely because old Scouts need to build fires. The rice heated on foil over the grill, and I dumped the whole can of tomatoes into the green stew. Predictably, the red and green combined to an ideal, appetizing medium brown. Final adjustments were made to the seasonings. If you understand cilantro or garlic, this would be the time to add them.

 

Finally, I pulled the big can from the fire and dropped in the previously cooked shrimp. Gumbo can accommodate other meats such as chicken, as available or desired. There would be nothing wrong with cooking this stew an hour or two before dinnertime and allowing the seasonings to permeate the shrimp as the whole pot cools. Note that the shrimp was protected from any additional boiling. If you're still with me, you surely know that overcooking shellfish toughens it, a seriously unwanted result.

 

On my gumbo's inaugural night, the customers were not disposed to let the shrimp steep. They made short work of it. This recipe has since played to appreciative audiences at the beach, in the mountains and even in everyday suburbia, where it beckons to you. Would you go to the trouble to build a charcoal fire the night before? If your idea of a cook's reward is in the eager consumption of your work, your efforts will be highly rewarded.

[Memorable Movie Lines]

Okay, so here's a list of movie lines and couplets I've pulled out of my head. No guarantee they're perfectly accurate, but they're close enough to be recognized. Likewise, they've been selected with no particular theme or logic. The films are not all arch-classics, but none of them are utter sleepers, either.

 

Two of the quotations below are from the same film, and I was sorely tempted to add a third line from that film, which doesn't necessarily prove it was all that great a movie for memorable lines. Probably it says more about my twisted sense of the importance of things...

 

So, granted, any other moviegoer would certainly not have made the same list I did. After you try your hand at my list, why not post one of your own and try it out on the rest of us here?

 

1. "Are you men with the police?"

"No, ma'am, we're musicians."

 

2. "I'm making this up as I go along."

 

3. "Never in any crisis of your life have I known you to have a hankie of your own."

 

4. "Two whole boiled chickens and four slices of white bread, toasted, no butter."

 

5. "Double dumbass on you!"

 

6. "Drive me up the hill, soldier."

 

7. "I just poisoned the boss. You think they won't fire me for a thing like that?"

 

8. "By George, I think she's got it."

 

9. "I give great phone."

 

10. "The reason I'm the world's greatest lover is, I practice so much when I'm alone."

[Great Supporting Actors]

Twenty years ago, we started a small private collection of film actors who were really enjoyable to watch, who have never been recognized in proportion to how much they contributed to their films.

 

Since then, Sean Connery has ridden his post-Bond career to a status if anything more distinguished than his portrayal of James Bond. Strother Martin, Robert Shaw and Brian Keith died. Christopher Plummer remained obscure. Tommy Lee Jones graduated to lead box office draw status.

 

And then recently I discovered that my search for the notable and unheralded among actors could reach backward, too. I took notice of Claude Raines.

 

In the Thirties, Claude Raines played scenes opposite the biggest names ever to grace a theater marquee, notably Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca and a little sleeper I found at the library entitled Mr. Skeffington. A young, vivacious Bette Davis was the box office attraction in Mr. Skeffington, a romance with its full share of literary complications. What I noticed, though, was that in a scene with a contemporary superstar, Claude Raines was never overwhelmed.

 

Compare and contrast Sondra Locke trying to hold her own in a scene with Clint Eastwood and you'll see why a) Sondra Locke's career has gone nowhere in particular, contracts from her paramour notwithstanding, and what a remarkable thing it is for a journeyman actor such as Claude Raines to hold his own in scenes with the likes of Bette and Bogey.

 

Or you could look at the third Indiana Jones movie, wherein Connery and Harrison Ford play father and son. I believe it's a tribute to both actors, the director, the cameramen, etc, that the superstar's screen presence was deftly balanced with that of the younger actor.

 

So, who's in your collection of unheralded but commendable supporting actors? (There are no real rules to this discussion, but probably to fit this category, an actor or actress would have to have never had top billing in a movie, i.e., no Cruises, deNiros, Crystals, Duvals, etc. You get the idea...)

 

And, what's your pick of the best post-Bond work of Sean Connery?

[Seabiscuit]

Have you seen Seabiscuit yet? Very enjoyable, nicely made movie. I believe there's an Oscar nomination performance in it, and I'm prepared to defend my choice. But first, let's see if anybody else noticed the same thing.

 

What did you like about Seabiscuit (the movie or the horse)?

 

Whose acting contributed the most to the movie?

[A good cup of coffee]

It's 3 p.m. at the Huddle House on the old highway. And it's August in Georgia, too. Just about anything brown and hot is welcome first thing in the morning, but a cup of coffee that tastes good on a hot summer afternoon is a serious achievement on somebody's part. Way to go, Huddlers!

 

Other consistently good cups of coffee turn up in the places where they're needed most: Dunkin Donuts, IHOP, etc. Krystal used to serve a good cup of coffee in a good cup, that is, a real heavy china cup, not a Styrofoam throwaway. Sadly, that was decades ago. Packaging and presentation make a difference, as in so many areas of life.

 

Where's your best coffee lately?

[20 Questions $20.00 Meltid WINS!]

Sorry, no cigar. Not yet anyway. But this group, like the one you suggested, is highly sensitized to the concept of movement.