🂡Grey Area 🂡

it’s coming out tomorrow!

:O

Roux (either flour and butter or instant roux mix)

3 stalks celery

2 green bell peppers

1 white onion

Green onions (or scallions)

Approx. 1 lb andouille sausage (kielbasa works if you can’t find andouille)

Approx. 1 lb chicken breast

Rice

Ritz crackers

Filé, Louisiana Hot Sauce, Tabasco, etc. (Optional)

Directions:

Use the biggest pot you have.

Chop all the veggies except the green onions. Save those for the end.

Make a roux (either check a couple videos about this or be a lazy Cajun like me and follow the instructions on the Tony Chachere’s instant roux package).

Add a bunch of water to the roux. I use a 2 quart pitcher to add a few cups’ worth at a time.

With the stove on medium heat, stir the veggies every so often while you chop the meat. It’ll eventually boil. I like to cut the (precooked) sausage first so I can have a little snack, then cut the chicken into roughly 1" chunks. I am imprecise in my cutting.

You can wait until the onions are starting to turn translucent, or just add the meat whenever. Continue stirring every few minutes to keep the pot from boiling over and to just…you know, move the veggies and meat around. You’re making swamp magic. This takes a while. You might need to add more water.

Make some white rice. We use a rice cooker, but you can do stovetop too.

The gumbo is done when the onions are translucent, the chicken has started staining a tan/brown, and the skin on the sausage is shrinking.

Chop the green onions and add them. Do better than me and actually remember to do this.

Serve! Fill your bowl maybe halfway with rice, add some gumbo to it. Experiment with how much broth you like in your bowl. Break up some Ritz crackers for a delicate, buttery crunch that also soaks up some broth. Optional: add filé (dried ground sassafras), hot sauce, Cajun seasoning (pro tip: Slap Ya Mama is less salty than Tony Chachere’s).

Enjoy your meal and don’t bare-knuckle box any alligators. Hug them instead.

This is my grandma Genevieve Fontenot’s recipe. This woman got hit by a bus when she was twelve and she won. She learned English as a second language and previously only spoke Cajun French. She designed her own house, owned a beauty salon, raised four daughters, and slaps cockroaches to death with her bare hands.

I have used this recipe to impress my Midwestern in-laws and friends. Actually…I think I’ve made all my lasting Midwestern friendships by making gumbo. My husband literally says he married me for my gumbo. The recipe above is a standard batch, but in the last 12+ years I’ve only made double or triple batches because that’s how voracious Midwesterners be when they haven’t been raised on gumbo.

you go to the well to get some water, and here’s Miriam’s boy, staring at the sky, completely still. his expression is unreadable. you hazard a hello and ask how he’s doing, and he slowly, unblinkingly, lowers his gaze on you (he’s 8 and is missing his frontal teeth, not that this is making you any less uncomfortable) and says “I cannot speak of the state of my being, Nathan son of Saul, my brother, but rejoice for the water you shall take today will be as pure as the soul of the children of Heaven”

*sees J boy, 8 yo, staring at you from across the street*

kid JC, coming home at twilight, a single white dove following him and chirping with weirdly human-like precision:

 moth̫́er,̦͌ ̮̉i h͙̉av͔̽e ͓͗b̘̃r̞̓o̮͘u̲̒gh̟͒t̺́ you a do̗͐ṽ͙e̢͘ ͈̾m͒͢a͈̽dē̝ ỏ̘f ͈̓c̆͜l͔̂aỷ͇ aṋ̑d̳̿ g͢͞i̹̾fted̖͡ ̻͐it ͓͂w̖̿it̎͜h t̥̃h͙͒e ̨̒m̧̂i̡̍ŗ͒â̫cḷ̔è̤ ̛̻of̞̅ l̘̈i̛̦fè̳

Miriam: ! that’s my little boy :) now let’s go get ready for dinner :) 

her husband Yosef, a carpenter who only marginally got signed up for this: 

yes, here is a baby oarfish 

MA! THERE’S A WEIRD FUCKING FISH!

Not much is known about Oarfish. Their maximum length is debatable, though there are reports of specimen up to 56 ft long. They live at great depths, and are rarely observed alive. Here’s a relatively small one:

Slightly larger one:

aaaaand, little bigger:

Yeah. these children get long.  hold on a mo’, i might have a better photo

yeah. there we go. a few hundred lbs of Oarfish. like i said, length-variable. that one’s only about 28 feet though. so like, imagine that but double. 

look how excited everyone is. well, everyone but the fish. oh, fun fact! they can self-amputate up to 3/4th of their body. lizard style. 

Historically, Oarfish have been described as sea serpents, and are probably responsible for a fair portion of myths. In Japanese folklore, their appearance portends earthquakes. Though rarely seen, Oarfish live in every ocean. All around the world. Everywhere. No matter what coastline you’re on, they’re always there. Just a few thousand feet below water. Waiting.

Alphonse Mucha

- actually EVERY main character that isn’t an animal is a person of color

- one of the main protagonists has a really well done traumatic backstory, like it is fucked up man, but they handle it and her trauma from it super well

- the coming out scene is handled so gracefully and realistically

On other notes:

- the soundtrack is fucking BOMB

- Frogs in Suits

- female animals don’t have tits and ridiculous eyelashes/lips

- lesbian snakes that play guitar

- a cat lumberjack village who’s leader is clearly based off of Paul Bunyan/John Henry right down to his fucking theme song

- its a VERY music based show, but the songs are a nice combination of Actual Music and Music Written For The Show

- the apocalypse happened in 2020 lmao rip

- the animation is *chefs kiss*

- the main voice actor also plays Glimmer in She-Ra

- Found Family trope

- Found Family being introduced and included into birth family lovingly and with fierce determination

- Pure of heart + dumb of ass + Tired of Yo Shit trio

- jam packed with astronomy and astrology

- literally can’t stress enough how good the fucking music is

Anyway sorry to derail this post but PLEASE watch this show. I’ve hardly seen anything about it and this is right up all of yalls lane. Do you like Voltron? She-Ra? Gravity Falls? Steven Universe? Miyazaki films? Dragon Prince? Into the Spiderverse? Then I can literally guarantee you will love this show bc its like all the best parts of those shows and movies combined.

Its is more like you hiring some guy to do private investigation about how your husband maybe cheating on you and Sherlock comes to your house high as fuck. Walks into your living room and without taking a moment to even talk to you or sign any paperwork, he turns around—pupils as big as god—and just says

“Its your best friend Brenda. I’ll email you the invoice.” 

So consider this, Holmes, at 2am, desperately searching the flat for the stashes of NOS cans, only to keep coming up with passive aggressive pamphlets about the dangers of caffeine overdose.

Watson wakes up to a stench like Satan’s ass to find Sherlock sitting by his bed with a re-heated pot of cold brewed Deathwish Coffee that had been hidden in the back of the toilet tank (brewing) for five months.  Sherlock is trying to say he’s proud of John’s cleverness in finding most of the stashes, but he’s passed into the fifth dimension and all John gets is a creepy vibrating grin and a sound like a shaken cat.