Faux Cajuns with A Real Cause
Notes from the Rehoboth Beach Gay-Jun Gumbo
Fest ‘08
On Saturday, February 2, twelve happy chefs
gave it the good old Cajun college try—and hundreds turned out to mingle
with an off season in-crowd that would make Kathy Griffin blush. The
Cajuns were faux—the cause was real—because paradoxically Rehoboth
Beach Main Street Gumbo is designed to send real Cajuns the resources to
rebuild their devastated coastline.
Take it from a bona fide born-and-bred
bayou boy—you Yankees can cook Cajun but you can’t strip. Then again,
New Orleans distinguishes itself as the only place on earth that knows how
to turn the adage “drink ‘em pretty” into a citywide project—a
debauchery unknown to Delaware.
Rehoboth’s Main Street proudly produces
12 gumbos for a PG-13 version of carnival—Girls gone mild. Boys, too.
But all you damn Yankees need is alcohol and attitude. That’s it! You
have the fun crowd. Beads, boas, masks and music! It took me a while to
diagnose the problem: You just need more fluids.
Take two pitchers of Hurricanes and call me
on Ash Wednesday. Here’s a one page master class:
First, the Cajun version of the old
standard “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” (practice practice practice)
is as follows: When a tourist in New Orleans asks, “How do I get to the
French Quarter?” the answer is, “First, you make a roo.” (Correctly
spelled roux). Everyone down south knows that gumbo, cholesterol, and big
butts wouldn’t exist without Cajun napalm: the roux.
Secondly, it’s a given that if you’re
born a Cajun, you’re mama is a good cook. So once you’re grown up and
on your own, and your roux comes out perfect, you then can tell your
friends, “I made a gumbo so good, it’ll make you wanna slap yo
mama!”
Thirdly, you need to learn to bend your
elbow before noon. This simple orthopedic activity will not only help you
to slap yo’ mama, but it will also flex your crucial ABSD (Adult
Beverage Sipping Device) used frequently to drink vodka and/or gin, a/k/a
transparent silly sauce, preparing you for the next phase…
Showing your _______ (you fill in the
blank)
So now, are you ready to go to downtown
Rehoboth Beach and wreak some Henlopen havoc? Can you judge a roux, slap
yo’ mama, work your ABSD, and show your fill in the blank? OK, follow
me. First stop: Cultured Pearl. Flash fried tempura alligator topped the
gumbo—a great touch, but the booze-to-gumbo consumption at the bar was
too low this early and the quiet sober woman next to me said, “I prefer
my alligator on my shoes.” Check, please! (BTW, I don’t vote since it
would be tantamount to Barbara Cook stopping into karaoke bars.) Across
the street at Dogfish Head, not only was his roux divine, but they got
extra pepper points! I’d slap my mama, but she’s “not with us” any
longer. I realize that Christina Crawford would have LOVED this outing!
And now we have beads (bargaining power for hopefully viewing “fill in
the blanks.”) Cloud 9 was hopping and the gumbo good. Dos Locos won the
wigs and boas award…and the line at Purple Parrot was evidence of the
power of hurricanes. Irish Eyes were smiling with Marcus, their New
Orleans trained chef, brought in as a ringer for the gumbo contest.
Allison at Go Fish was serving Cajun gumbo with a British accent, and when
we turned the corner at the Frogg Pond I thought I’d died and gone home.
Live jazz sax was wafting through the air—and it was here that Candi
Apple of Philly showed me her cleavage. Bush league stuff, but still it
was technically a fill in the blank.
We checked out the roux rumors that had
spread about Café Solé having a bona fide Cajun chef and sure enough a
great slap-several-mamas gumbo awaited us there. Retro Café was playing
Dixieland Jazz and setting bananas aflame in the dining room, creating a
genuine backdrop for their smoky gumbo. Stoney Lonen’s bar was packed
with gumbo voters, and they won the “thank-you for serving with a real
spoon” award. The final stop on the gumbo train was Mariachi where their
Latin version gumbo was served in tiny, house-made tortilla bowls.
The colossal joke in N.O. is that drag
queens take the pancake makeup off just in time to have ashes rubbed on
their foreheads on Ash Wednesday morning. We here in the nation’s
capital await what follows Super Tuesday and that is “Ass Wednesday.”
We Dems will eventually get a proud donkey named Hillary or Barack. They
just get an ass.
Altogether now, let’s show him our fill
in the blank.
Rehoboth Main Street will announce the
winner of the Gumbo Fest on Feb. 15. Go to www.rehomain.com to see if
Purple Parrot will retain the title of “Best Gumbo in downtown
Rehoboth.”
Brent Mundt makes a living in Washington and a life in Rehoboth
Beach.
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