The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival (28 page)

Everyone laughed, applauded, then ran for the cars. No horns were blown, no fingers proffered as they filed out of the parking fields and the rain started coming down in sheets. In the time-honored parlance of church bulletins across the country, “A good time was had by all.” More importantly, no one was killed by lightning, which had happened at the Zydeco Festival on two separate occasions.

I stand over the kitchen sink, staring out at the makeshift skyline of the carnival rides, their spindly frames becoming more distinct, strong black lines materializing from gray curtains as the rain slows to a light patter, then stops. No birds call, no rabbits shuffle, no dogs bark or growl or yelp, no cats creep. Since Mark has come back, Chase and the other cat, Rabbit, have been sleeping in his room. The carnies, so loud earlier in the night, are all in their trailers deep in chemical comas. This is as silent as it gets back here. Even the wind has ceased, the leaves giving one final sigh as the back edge of the front finally slips over Grand Prairie. The only sounds are the
plinks
and
plonks
of water drops landing on trailer roofs and Tilt-a-Whirl carts.

I nod dreamily as I stand there, slightly amused that I’ve become reacquainted with sober sleep. I’m drowsily thinking how awfully nice it is of nature to cooperate with this mood, when a rooster crows somewhere in the distance.

I jolt awake, wide-eyed.

“Stupid rooster,” I mumble, smiling.

I pour myself a glass of water, drink it, then walk back to my room and climb into bed next to Vicky.

A READING GROUP GUIDE

The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival

Ken Wheaton

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

Turn the page for some
Rabbit Festival
lagniappe—a little something extra.

I’m the sort who makes vast pronouncements about Cajun cooking. As I am from Opelousas, Louisiana, and most people outside of Louisiana think a Cajun is either (a) a mythical being, (b) Emeril, or (c) Adam Sandler in
The Waterboy
, I’m not exactly shy about telling most people they don’t know what they’re talking about and they likely haven’t had Cajun food. The sad reality is that in most places, Popeyes red beans and rice is the closest thing to authentic you’ll find (and it’s actually pretty good). After an exchange about gumbo on Twitter, I figured I’d quit mocking people for not knowing any better and would provide you with a roadmap to true gumbo bliss.

The following is for chicken and sausage gumbo. Note that I don’t use okra because I don’t like it. Also note that Seafood Gumbo is a different beast from this (and in some ways easier to cook). What you should not do is mix seafood and chicken/ sausage gumbo.

Finally, don’t you ever put any of the following in your gumbo: tomatoes, corn, peas, carrots, or mushrooms.

I will find you. I will slap you.

Before starting, a word about ingredients.

Roux.
In Cajun cooking, roux is usually made with vegetable oil and flour. Never, ever use olive oil as it has a distinct taste that does not belong in this dish. You can make your own roux (see pages 299–301) or, like many time-pressed Cajun mamas and mawmaws, just use the jarred stuff. After all, it’s flour and oil and contains no secret techniques or ingredients—not even “love,” though “impatience” is often thrown in.

Sausage and andouille.
This will be your biggest ingredient challenge. My suggestion is to order it (and your roux) from cajungrocer.com or something similar—at least for your first time out, so that you can see what this sausage is supposed to taste like. Both Cajun sausage and andouille are typically smoked pork. Most people can’t tell the difference between the two. After roux, this is probably the most crucial ingredient in getting non-seafood gumbo to taste like gumbo.
Do not
substitute Italian sausage. There are some kielbasas that come close, but they tend to be greasier. In a pinch, the safest substitute to use is Aidells Cajun Style Andouille, which you can typically find at gourmet stores.

Tasso
(pronounced tah-so) is smoked pork with very little fat. It’s almost like ham. If you can’t find it, don’t worry about it. Just double your sausage.

Onions.
Use yellow or Spanish onions. Don’t use white or red onions.

Tomatoes.
Don’t use them. Ever. I don’t care what anyone says. If I find out you’re using tomatoes, I will come to your home and revoke these recipes! (Sorry if I’m repeating myself, but I feel strongly about this.)

Serving.
Gumbo is a soup, not a stew or a gravy. While it is served over white rice, the rice should be covered almost completely. (For a pretty serving, pack the rice into a small ice-cream bowl or some such, then flip that into your soup bowl. Pour enough gumbo so that the top of your little rice island is just sticking out of the brown ocean of goodness.)

For a quick-and-easy gumbo recipe, buy a jar of Savoie’s Roux and consult the recipe on the label. It’s not going to be the best gumbo in the world, but it’s pretty good and it’s certainly better (and more authentic) than anything you’ll find in a restaurant (or in New Orleans). It’s a good place to start before trying to experiment later down the line.

If you feel up to it and want bragging rights, make your own roux. (I’ve long given up on doing this.)

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup flour

(Note that handy dandy 1:1 ratio if you’re making smaller or bigger batches.)

In a cast-iron pot or skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Slowly whisk in the flour, stirring constantly for three to five minutes until the roux is caramel—almost but not quite chocolate—in color. To be extra careful, I actually use a lower heat and just sit there and stir it until it’s done, because if you burn even a little bit of it, you have to throw it all out. Don’t be afraid to take it off the heat a little bit before it’s done, and
keep stirring
it as it will continue to cook even when it’s off the flame.

Now, on to the gumbo.

1 large chicken (cut up and seasoned)
^*

vegetable oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

4 pods of garlic, minced

3 stalks of celery, chopped

4 huge tablespoons of roux

1 pound smoked pork sausage or andouille

1 pound smoked tasso

4 quarts water

½ cup of green onions, chopped cooked white rice

First step: Season and brown the chicken.

Generously rub down your bird parts with either Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning, Slap Ya Mama Seasoning (both available at cajungrocer.com), or a mixture of salt, black pepper, and garlic powder (and just a dash of cayenne).

Cover the bottom of a large black iron pot (or a soup pot—two gallons or more) with a thin sheen of vegetable oil.

Set to medium-high heat.

Brown the chicken pieces to a golden brown. If parts stick to the bottom, hit it with some water and scrape the bits up. That’s extra flavoring.

After the chicken is brown, remove it from pot. If the bottom of your pot is small, feel free to do the browning in batches.

Next: Lower the heat a notch and chuck in all the vegetables
except
the green onions. Toss in a touch of salt and black pepper and sauté for two minutes or so. Chuck in your roux and stir it all together, letting it simmer for another three minutes or so.

Blend chicken, sausage, and tasso into the mix and sauté for fifteen minutes. (You might want to add just a little water—or even white wine—if it looks like your roux is sticking to the bottom.)

Next: Add your water.

Do this slowly, stirring constantly. (Note: Some folks will substitute part or all of the four quarts of water with the chicken stock. As I let mine cook forever, stock isn’t necessary. And if you’re using store-bought stock, you’ll have to watch out for salt content.)

Bring to a rolling boil.

Reduce to simmer.

Cook anywhere from 1.5 hours to all day.

For another layer of flavor, add one bay leaf and/or one sprig of thyme. (Be careful with thyme. It can overpower pretty easily.)

Again, you’ll need to salt (and possibly pepper) it at some point, but wait at least an hour after simmering starts before you start salting to see how much the sausage is bringing to the party.

Skim off the fat or grease as it cooks.

Add water if you think you need it, as quite a bit of it will boil away…which is fine. While you don’t want it to cook down to stew consistency, letting it cook longer gets it a bit thicker and gets in more flavor.

Add green onions immediately before serving.

Serve over cooked white rice. (Don’t be afraid to drown the rice.)

Crawfish is almost always the first thing to come up in a discussion with non-Cajuns about Cajun food—unless it’s Thanksgiving, when the talk turns to turduckens or deep-fried turkey.

Let me say first that Crawfish Etouffee (Ay-too-fay) has little to do with crawfish boils—in which people stand around in the backyard drinking beer and getting their hands messy cracking those little buggers open and eating all the tail meat. Unless you have an outdoor space, the proper equipment, and access to live crawfish, you can just forget about boiled crawfish. It’s only good fresh. And though you can get live crawfish delivered in season (generally February through June), it’s ridiculously expensive. And take it from someone who boiled crawfish in a New York City apartment—just don’t. The horrible ditch-water smell will be with you for weeks and stray cats will come from miles around to investigate. At any rate, if you want the great taste of crawfish, go with etouffee.

Crawfish etouffee is a rich, buttery crawfish dish served over rice. The below recipe is easy…so easy, in fact, I’m not certain I transcribed it correctly! I wrote this version down for a friend’s wedding quite a few years ago (hence the vaguely inspirational-sounding notes toward the bottom). Cooking time varies, but it shouldn’t be overly watery, and the end product should come out with a reddish-yellow color. Traditionalists out there will point out that it’s better first to make a roux and do it the slow way, but you can find those sorts of recipes on your own.

1 big yellow onion

1 medium-sized green pepper

couple of stalks of celery

2 pods of garlic (or more, if you can stand it)

1 stick of butter

1 pound of cleaned and cooked crawfish tails

1 bay leaf

3 or 4 Roma tomatoes, diced (otpional)

1 can of Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom soup

1 bunch of green onions

salt and black pepper to taste; cayenne pepper, if you want to spice it up

Chop yellow onion, pepper, celery, and garlic. Sauté in butter over medium heat until onions are translucent and green peppers have wilted. Chuck in the crawfish tails, the bay leaf and, if using, the diced tomatoes. Add salt and black pepper. (Go easy on the salt, because Cream of Mushroom soup is fairly salty.) Let cook on medium low for about ten minutes. Spoon in Cream of Mushroom soup—about half the can, to start (this depends on how liquid-y the dish is so far)—until you have a thick, creamy sauce. Put on simmer. Chop up the green onions and chuck those in for color and taste. Let simmer for another ten minutes or so. Do not leave heat on high or overcook because crawfish will get rubbery. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over cooked white rice.

Notes:

1. This is an extremely simple dish. Cooking time takes perhaps thirty minutes (of course, playing around and cooking longer usually makes things taste better). There are much more complicated ways to make this dish. But, sometimes, shortcuts do work. And notice, too, the ratios are pretty much all 1:1, so if you want more, it’s pretty simple for even math dummies like me to figure out.
   
2. The crawfish is best ordered from Louisiana. Cajungrocer.com is a good site for such things. Like most things in life, the crawfish tails can be found in Chinatown for much cheaper and much less effort. But they taste awful. Just because something (or a reasonable facsimile of something) can be found in Chinatown, it does not mean you should purchase it. Your guests will not be impressed with your nose for a good deal if your dish smells like water from a drainage ditch.
   
3. Butter. Butter is important. Everything is better with butter. You can cut the butter amount a little if you want the dish to be a little less rich. But under no circumstances are you to use oil of any kind, margarine, or butterlike substances.
   
4. Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. Not to sound like a midwestern housewife, but you should always have a few cans of this in your pantry. Like a lot of the much-maligned values of the red states, Cream of Mushroom soup seems hopelessly trite, outdated, and square. But it works. It’s something that, used in the right way, can help you make an exotic dish like this and do it quickly and simply. The old-school version of this dish calls for a roux. But that’s awfully French sounding and, as usual when involving the French, is overly complicated, time-consuming, and likely to fail—all for an end result that tastes the same.
   
5. Tomatoes. Everything above this line is my mama’s recipe. Mama doesn’t use tomatoes. I do. Why? Partly to jazz up the taste. Partly to be different. Sometimes you can tweak tradition without throwing it all out the window.
   

1. Did Father Steve ever stand a chance against Vicky? Discuss the struggle he had with his vows.
   
2. At one point, Father Steve refers to the “Americanization” of America. In other words, with the spread of chain stores and fast-food franchises, the country became more homogenous. Though some people bemoan the loss of American subcultures, many people in unique areas of the country want their Walmarts and Burger Kings. Indeed, Walmart is a gathering place for some of the folks in Grand Prairie. Has this homogenization robbed south Louisiana of its unique character, or, from what you gather from the book, has that character survived?
   
3. Do you think Father Steve has “church envy”? He may have issues with other religions, but does it seem that he wants a bit of that community and dynamism offered by less traditional religions? Was he jealous of B.P.’s church because it was larger and had more parishioners? Discuss the size of a church as it relates to community.
   
4. At what point do you think Steve first sees Vicky as a woman rather than as a sidekick or an assistant?
   
5. Does Mark’s story in the bar resonate regardless of sexual orientation? Does he seem less concerned with the Church’s stance on homosexuality than with the fact that, gay or straight, living alone, detached from society, may not be emotionally healthy? Do you feel that such a lifestyle is antiquated, or does it have its merits in contemporary society?
   
6. Does Vicky make a good point? Has Father Steve, aside from detaching himself from society as a whole, become lazy and self-absorbed? What about him has changed since organizing the Rabbit Festival?
   
7. Father Steve and Miss Rita seem to have a pretty open relationship and could almost be seen as a hopeful sign in race relations, yet other than their interaction, their worlds appear to be fairly segregated. Do you see them as a sign of racial progress or as a holdover from a time when black and white were thrown together by unequal working relationships?
   
8. Did Father Steve join the priesthood for the right reasons—i.e., as a refuge from his own inability to deal with regular relationships? Do you think this is a motivation behind some who seek a cloistered life, regardless of religion?
   
9. Is Blackfoot right when he says that denying the sexual urge is ultimately a futile gesture? Or are there arguments to be made for the focus and discipline necessary to maintain a celibate lifestyle?
   
10. How do you think the Church will respond to Father Steve’s actions at the end of the book? What about Father Steve’s congregation?