Jean Brazile's Seafood Gumbo

I'm a big Donna Brazile fan. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard she would be the guest speaker at a Washington Women Lawyers Awards Dinner that I was attending. Thanks to the swift shipping of Amazon.com, I had two copies of her book Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in America, a memoir of her life in politics, in my hands the next morning, ready for Tracy and I to have signed later that night.

As I introduced myself to Ms. Brazile, I said, "I'm actually not an attorney, I'm a food writer." Clearly being a food lover herself (each chapter of her book is named after a New Orleans food), she flipped towards the back of the book and showed me her late mother Jean's recipe for seafood gumbo.

"I'm talking gumbo with Donna Brazile!" I was screaming like a twelve-year-old inside my head.

There's a lot of chopping and prepping involved in gumbo, so Jean would divvy up the tasks among her nine children. Who needs a Cuisinart when you have nine kids as your prep chefs! I bet they also made for some lickity split clean up too.

This last Saturday we hosted a dinner party and spent the afternoon making Jean's gumbo. As Ms. Brazile recommends in Step 1 of her cooking instructions, "Pour yourself something cold...You're about to cook with grease." Out came the wine and the Dr. John.

Many shrimp, oysters, sausages, glasses of wine, and much stirring-and-browning-of-the-roux later, we dished up the gumbo sat down w our nine guests.

Then we raised our glasses and toasted the stirring up of America's pot.

Damn, that gumbo was good.

Check The Politico for the complete recipe and instructions for Jean's Seafood Gumbo.