I thought quite a bit about what to enter for this week's theme - of course I considered making something truly Texan to reflect my love for my adopted state. I also considered pulling from everywhere I have lived, like I did with my paella. But in the end I went with this gumbo for a few reasons. One, Leo and I have a great love for Louisiana, it's culture and food and people. We go there every year - sometimes for a festival - sometimes during a down time. Leo proposed in New Orleans, and we have great friends that live there. Also, I wanted my dish to reflect our lives. At our house on any given weekend you will usually find a crowd - large or small - gathered around a pile of crawdads, or bobbing in the pool waiting for somethng to come off the grill, or maybe in the living room cheering for our Longhorns, or possibly just gathered around our big kitchen table. In all cases there is sure to be food, friends and family. I make this gumbo 2 or 3 times a year and it is a crowd favorite. I should probably call it 2 day gumbo because you really want to shop the day before. Also I think you could compress the timeline by being efficient with multitasking, but I don't. I like to do a step, water the garden, another step, go for a swim, another step, maybe throw in a load of wash or walk the dog, and generally meander through the day until it's time to feed some folks. I make several different kinds of gumbo, but this one is really the Cadillac of them all. We love this stuff, I hope you will too. - aargersi

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