Sample Newsletter: superbloom 🌼 and green gumbo

Below is the most recent email I sent out to my newsletter subscribers. If you like what you read, consider joining my mailing list at the bottom of the page. I keep my correspondence to once a week.

 

Hello, fellow storytellers: 

This past Friday morning, I took a solo field trip ninety minutes southeast of where we live in California to see the spectacular superbloom of wildflowers at Carrizo Plain National Monument. (See photo above—it was tough to choose just one.) As I wound and rolled through the velvety green, flower-dusted hills between here and there, grateful to be on this side of an unusually wet winter, I processed the emotional effects of last week’s big project: a batch of gumbo z’herbes, or green gumbo.

 

I learned to make gumbo z’herbes from the late New Orleans chef and cultural icon Leah Chase during a period following Hurricane Katrina in 2005/2006 when she had time on her hands because her flooded restaurant had not yet been rebuilt. You can read more about that experience in my book Gumbo Tales if you’d like, but all you need to know for the purposes of this story is that I continued to make a double batch of gumbo z’herbes every year for a Carnival season open house until we moved to California in 2016. I deeply miss hosting that party.

 

The way Leah taught me to make gumbo z’herbes, using eleven or thirteen different greens[1] and a pound each of five different meats, a double batch could feed more people than I even know in California—and many of those wouldn’t eat gluten or animal products, or both—and so I no longer have an annual gumbo z’herbes tradition. But as Leah used to make her gumbo z’herbes every year on Holy Thursday, my missing her always becomes a body ache during Easter week, and as this year my Easter week vegetable farm box contained carrot tops, radish greens, baby leeks, and cilantro . . . I mean, it was time. 

 

As you know if you’ve been receiving this newsletter (or reading my blog) for a while, I love lists. Here’s a list of everything that went into my Easter Week 2023 Gumbo Z’Herbes:

 

  • Carrot tops

  • Radish greens

  • Baby leeks, including the green parts

  • Cilantro

  • Red kale

  • Collard greens (2 bunches because out here they make skimpy collard bunches)

  • Spinach

  • Arugula

  • Parsley

  • Lacinato kale

  • Dandelion greens

  • Ham stock (using a bone from my hometown’s ham)

  • Smoked sausage

  • Linguiça (a Portuguese-style sausage popular in this area)

  • Fresh hot sausage (formed into small meatballs)

  • Beef stew meat

  • Chicken drumettes

  • Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 gluten free flour (yep)

  • Avocado oil 

  • Celery juice (perfect solution when your veg box includes celery FIVE WEEKS IN A ROW)

  • 3 bay leaves

  • Dried thyme 

  • Cayenne pepper

  • White pepper

  • Black pepper

  • Salt

  • FilĂ© powder

Making this gumbo z’herbes, roughly a seven-hour project, put me in the heart space I’d been craving; eating it reminded me I’m capable of easing my own grief; and sharing it with a few friends honored the spirit of the woman whose recipe and technique I borrow. These are the ideas that tossed around in my mind as I drove out to see the flowers—the fields of which, coincidentally, popped Mardi Gras colors: purple, green, and gold.

At a student’s recommendation, I had downloaded the audio version of Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us, by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, to accompany me on the drive, and wouldn’t you know it, the authors address the power of taste in the very first chapter, like this:

 

The foods you eat trigger your 10,000-plus tastebuds, generating electrical signals that travel from your mouth to an area of the brain called the gustatory cortex. This part of the brain is also believed to process visceral and emotional experiences, which helps to explain how it is that taste is among the most effective sensations for encoding memory. It’s why nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon taste like the fall and winter holidays for those living in America and Europe, while the herbaceous and citrusy marigold flower tastes like celebration in India, where the edible blooms are routinely part of wedding ceremonies. It explains why Susan makes her grandmother’s chicken and dumpling recipe when she wants to feel comforted, and why Ivy’s go-to is moist chocolate cake, inspired by the rich, gooey pudding her grandmother made every Sunday growing up.[2]

 

It also explains why I froze a few servings of last week’s gumbo z’herbes for the next time I crave a visceral communion with a dear friend and a tradition from my past.  

 

[1] According to Leah and Creole lore, an odd number of greens will bring you luck and a new friend for each one. 

[2] I transcribed this passage from the audiobook, so punctuation may vary from the written work.

Speaking of gumbo, I’m teaching a one-day gumbo workshop on Saturday, July 8, 2023. Consider joining me if you live in the area! Click HERE for info.

I’m also teaching a six-week summer 2023 course titled “Tips and Motivations for Writing Your Life Story.” This one has both in person and Zoom options, so anyone anywhere may take it. Check it out HERE and pass it on to anyone in your life who has stories to tell. (That’s all of us, by the way.) 

ExtrasSara Roahennewsletter, green gumbo, gumbo z'herbes, superbloom, superbloom 2023, Carrizo Plain National Monument, Easter Week, Holy Week, Your Brain On ArtComment