Watermelon Days and Firefly Nights: Heartwarming Scenes from Small Town Life (27 page)

M
EANWHILE, THE
E
LLA
L
OUISE FOLKS
who were planning on entering the contest began their preparations in earnest.

Ten days before the cook-off, members of the Family Medical Clinic staff team, made up of Dr. Sarah Strickland, nurse Janet Evans, and receptionist Esther Vaughn, shared a sack of microwave popcorn during their midmorning break and discussed their proposed entry into the contest. Only problem was that halfway through the bag of popcorn they found themselves in a heated disagreement as to how best prepare their gumbo’s roux—the cooked mixture of flour and fat essential to the making of all gumbos.

“My granny never used anything but bacon grease, and she was born and raised in Louisiana,” Janet said.

“No, Crisco works best,” said Esther. “Makes a
smoother, more consistent roux. Browns up better and there’s less worry about scorching.”

Sarah pulled rank. “Uh-uh. Bacon grease and Crisco are both saturated fats—bad for the heart. We need to set a healthy example by using liquid corn oil. Nothing else. There’s enough heart disease in this county. I’m not going to be accused of adding to my business by clogging up folks’ arteries more than they already are. And as for the flour—”

“Not whole wheat,” pleaded Janet.

“Please?” said Esther.

“Nothing but,” said Sarah.

Esther and Janet’s heads both dropped. Their chances of winning had just sunk to nil.

Todd and Patricia Scutter, who since the adoption of their darling Honduran daughter had been fascinated by anything remotely related to Latin America, planned to prepare their gumbo with a south-of-the-border flair. Chopped chilies, fresh cilantro, and copious amounts of ground cumin were what they planned to use in seasoning their pot.

Patricia looked forward to her and the baby wearing the fancy embroidered dresses she had bought on the adoption trip she and Todd had made to Honduras. Todd, though slightly less enthused, agreed to don a serape for the day. To set a festive scene, they decided to decorate their cooking site with multicolored lights and piñatas hung from the trees.

When contestant Tim Hartford, who had been living with Rocky and Rochelle Shartle for the past few months, told everyone at the Wild Flour about his plan to cook up a vegetarian gumbo, folks coughed, shuffled their feet, and avoided his gaze. No one wanted to be rude. By all accounts, Tim seemed to be as nice a young man as could be. Of course, being from New Jersey, he couldn’t be expected to know that any gumbo fit to be consumed by true-blue, God-fearing Americans would contain at least three, possibly four or even five varieties of animal products.

As for Tim’s plan to decorate his cooking site with a Hawaiian theme—palm trees, crepe-paper leis, and tiki torches—well, folks around Ella Louise had never heard of such a thing.

Bessie Bishop, because of her tasty contributions to several church potlucks, had established herself as a good cook. However, when turning in her entry form, she let it slip that she had never in her life made gumbo. Folks in the know immediately counted her out. One did not come to gumbo-cooking overnight.

Bessie didn’t see how cooking gumbo could be that hard, especially considering the fact that she was once a finalist in the Pillsbury regional bake-off. She searched the Internet for the perfect recipes. She firmly believed that the key to preparing a winning dish—whether it be apple pie or fig preserves,
or gumbo, for that matter—was to use the freshest ingredients possible. Before moving to Ella Louise, Bessie had lived in Houston, and she had a few secret seafood-supplier tricks up her sleeve. Not only that, in the little greenhouse behind her home, Bessie was growing tomatoes, okra, green onions, and four different kinds of peppers. Those just-plucked veggies would be her ticket to first prize. She was sure of it.

Truth was, Polly Ann and Molly Jan Pierce were looked upon by most everyone in Ella Louise as the team most likely to take first prize. And no wonder. The sisters had an outstanding culinary reputation. Every year, the two of them dominated at least three out of seven categories of the cooking contest held during Ella Louise’s annual Okra Festival.

The ladies had a way with food.

Rumor had it that their entry would be concocted from an old family recipe, a secret one handed down from their great-great-granddaddy on their mother’s side, who was known to be an outstanding river-barge cook. Unlike many of their peers, Polly and Molly believed in the exact measuring of every ingredient. If their great-great-granddaddy’s gumbo was good, well, it was assumed that the sisters’ would be exactly the same.

Because he didn’t get page two of the rules, contestant Crow Buxley did not know that cooking pots would be provided for cook-off contestants. He thought that he had to provide his own. So a big part of his preparation for the cook-off was to make a trip to the nearest hardware store, located in Pearly, a good thirty-minute drive from Ella Louise.

The price of the pot and rack gave him a start. Sure sounded high. Then he thought better of it. The pot would be something good to have on hand. He could use it for stew, chili, even for minestrone soup, should he care to cook for a big outside crowd some time. Why, next time there was a family reunion, he could take his pot and feed the whole clan something good.

“You do know, Mr. Buxley, that you’ll need to season your pot before you use it the first time,” said the woman when he hefted the thing up onto the counter to check out.

“No. Don’t reckon I do,” said Crow.

“If you don’t, everything you cook in it will stick and burn.”

Sticking? Burning? That wouldn’t do.

“It’s easy. All you do is rub oil all over it. Take the racks out of your oven at home and then put that pot, lid and all, inside. Turn on your oven to about four hundred degrees. Leave it in there a good hour or so. Once the pot cools down, it wouldn’t hurt to repeat the process another couple of times. You can’t season a pot like this too much. The more you do it, the better it’ll cook. Will this be all for you today?”

Crow thought a minute. Seemed like there was something else.

“Bug spray. Wasp and hornet. A whole mess of wasps are bent on building their nests under the eaves of my house.”

“How many cans you need?” she asked.

“Two ought to be enough,” said Crow. “Thank you. Honey, there’s no need to put ’em in a sack.” He lifted the lid of the pot. “Just set ’em in here. Yes. That’ll be fine. Now, how much is it that I owe you?”

Crow waited until the Friday evening before the Saturday contest to season his pot. He figured that way the pot would be fresh. Everything else was all in order. Crow’s gumbo recipe called for shrimp, crab, crawfish, sausage, and chicken, and he had all of them already cleaned and
prepared. Crow also had his tomatoes and celery and
onions all chopped up and secured into individual twist-tie-closed bread bags. His seasonings were measured out, but in case he hadn’t figured right, he planned to take the individual containers with him as well. Most important of all, Crow had his flour and grease in coffee cans so as to be ready to make up his roux.

Now. To season the pot. Wonder why they called it seasoning? Didn’t the woman say all you had to do was rub oil on it and heat it up real hot? Crow hoisted the pot onto the counter in his kitchen. He turned on the oven, then remembered that he needed to take the racks out for the pot to fit. By now the racks were hot. Not wanting to burn his countertop or the floor, Crow put the racks on the back porch.

So.

Now.

Oil.

How to put the oil on? Crow decided that a sponge would work for the task. Sure enough, the sponge did an excellent job. Carefully, Crow rubbed oil over the sides of the pot, underneath the bottom, even on the little feet. He didn’t forget to oil the top or the handle either, though he wasn’t sure doing so was necessary. The pot looked good with its shiny coat of oil. Once he was done, Crow heaved the pot into the oven, closed the door, and went into the living room to rest. All that cooking and chopping and peeling and oiling had pretty much worn him out.

Crow guessed that he must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, the phone was ringing.

“Hello.”

“Crow. It’s me. Bessie. You all ready for tomorrow?”

“Just about. Got my pot in the oven.”

“What pot?” asked Bessie.

“My gumbo pot. Got it in the oven. Seasoning. So nothing will stick,” he said.

“But Crow, the city’s providing pots. You don’t have to bring your—” Bessie’s sentence was interrupted by a roof-raising sound.

Ca-boom. CA-BOOM! CRASH!!!

“Crow!” she cried.

She heard his phone drop.

“Crow! Crow!”

What in the world could that crashing sound have been? She had to go see. In her haste, she couldn’t find her car keys. Rats! Where were they? After a few minutes of searching, Bessie gave up, put on a sweater over her purple lounging pajamas, and set out in a trot. It was a quarter mile to Crow’s house.

The headlights of Mayor Tinker’s car fell on Bessie as she hurried along on the side of the street. He rolled down his window.

“Bessie? That you? What are you doing walking at this time of evening?”

She was out of breath and obviously upset. “It’s Crow,” she huffed. “Something’s wrong. I don’t know what. We were talking. There was this big bang. He dropped the phone.”

Mayor Tinker reached over and opened the passenger door for her to get in. When they arrived at Crow’s house, his front door was unlocked.

“Crow,” called the mayor, who went in first, “you all right?”

“Crow?” called Bessie.

There was a terrible smell in the house. They went on in and found Crow in the kitchen, standing, dizzy and dazed in front of his stove. What once had been an oven door was now a black, smoking hole. The door had been blown clean off its hinges and had landed across the room, where it now lay melting the vinyl floor. Also of note were the remains of a couple of cans of wasp and hornet spray that could be seen in other parts of the room.

As for the stove?

Dead, all of its wiring fried to a crisp.

“Crow! My word! What happened here?” said Bessie. “You could have been killed!”

She was so glad that he hadn’t been.

I
RECENTLY ATTENDED
the fifth annual Ella Louise Gumbo Cook-off. It’s an event that I try never to miss. I know that while I’m there, I’ll get to see old friends, catch up on the local gossip and goings on in the town, and always, always hear the tale of how Crow Buxley, preparing to make gumbo, nearly blew up his house.

Poor Crow.

He’s taken a lot of ribbing over the years. Luckily, he’s good-natured about it, even though the story grows bigger and funnier every time that it’s told. When Crow overhears someone relating the tale to me, when he sees me nodding and pretending that it’s the first time I’ve ever heard the story, he sneaks me a wink.

I know exactly what that wink means.

Sometime later that day, he and I will slip off somewhere by ourselves. We’ll get us a couple of Dr. Peppers, find a comfortable, out-of-the-way place to sit, and have us a nice long chat.

Well out of the earshot of the others, Crow’ll tell me about Molly Jan and Polly Ann Pierce’s recent shopping trip to Dallas, and why they are no longer allowed to set foot inside Neiman Marcus, their all-time favorite department store.

Crow will tell me about the crazy and up-until-now covered-up incident involving the leaky baptistery over at Chosen Vessel Church and what that has to do with the stitches on the forehead of Millard Fry.

I’ll learn touching details about the melancholy romance between Melissa Bates, waitress at the Wild Flour, and Tim Hartford, the town mime. He’ll tell me why folks are hoping and praying (bless those two kids’ hearts) that it’ll last.

Eventually, Crow and I will finish our cold drinks. I’ll be the first one to look at my watch, stand up, and stretch. “Guess I best be heading toward home,” I’ll say.

“When you expect to be back up our way?” Crow will ask.

“Soon,” I’ll say. And it’s the truth. In a place like Ella Louise, there are always more stories to be shared. And since tales of small-town life are among my most favorite things, I’ll be back for more.