I was watching the Neville Brothers on youtube yesterday and realized that I had lost and forgotten a useful and beloved word from my childhood vocabulary, “whosenever”. Whosenever conveyed more than “whoever” or “whomever” to us.  It was an expression of perhaps disinterest and unconcern, expressed in a southern Black way while conversing. That was a good word.  As of today I’m reclaiming it and teaching it to the kids 🙂

Our daughter Jade is graduating from high school this Saturday, and the family will be briefly back together again; our son is coming from Maryland and my husband from Haiti. I wanted to make something special that everyone loves and decided on a file gumbo.

Unfortunately,  I have still not been inspired to make up a batch of Emeril’s essence that is the perfect mixture for Creole and Cajun dishes.  Rummaging around the pantry, I did find a jar of my neighbor Caroline’s Cajun Spice Rub.  Caroline makes good rubs/salts and while I wouldn’t say her rub was authentically Cajun (more herbs then spices), this was a tasty rub and I just added a heaping teaspoon of piment d’espelette to the mixture as a work around.  Perfect!

My husband who has apparently been starving to death in Haiti, and rightfully so, had to be beaten away from the browned chicken.

My poor thyme plants are under an avalanche of weeds.  My husband will fix this before he returns to Haiti.  In the meantime I was able to scrounge up enough for the broth.  I used white peppercorns because I had white peppercorns 😉

The recipe for this gumbo can be found here.  There are many gumbo variations.  Try your own with duck, okra, whatever you like.