"Nordstrom: Entertaining at Home Cookbook" Blog #2

Austin Ibale
Hilmes Period 1
Honors English
28, December 2016

Blog Number 2

For most meals, people enjoy a light dish for lunch or a light dish before a big course. Therefore, soup is a great meal to have for lunch or for an appetizer. Throughout this book, I've learned that certain types of meals can set certain types of moods. In the cookbook it states, "serving soup before sitting down at the table can act as a signal for guests to come together to mingle and to whet their appetites" (Clem & Northern 64). So today I am going to make a classic New Orleans Seafood gumbo.

The gumbo I am going to make is made out of canola oil, flour, olive oil, bell peppers, onions, celery, white wine, chicken broth, fish, sausage, cajun seasoning, pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, thyme, garlic, bay leaves, salt, tabasco, shrimp, crabmeat and rice. In order to get the right texture for this gumbo (roux), you must stir constantly. Stated in the cookbook, "In a good gumbo, the roux is traditionally cooked until it is deep brow, and it contributes a rich and nutty taste and aroma to the finished dish" (Northern 69). So that means I have to stir the roux constantly for an hour. This is going to take a lot of patience, but the end result will hopefully be worth it.

So in these photos, I am stirring the roux (canola oil and flour) in one pot and mixing the other ingredients in another pan. Mostly every ingredient in the gumbo must be added one at a time and stirred into the other ingredients one at a time. Throughout the making of the gumbo, I've learned that different times and temperatures of mixing the ingredients effects the flavors of the dish itself. So like I've said in the previous paragraph, the darkness of the roux helps contribute a rich and nutty taste and aroma to the dish. Overall, time and patience is needed in order to get perfection when making a dish. What makes you able to have patience?

By: Ibale, Austin