Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor

By Marcy Nathan, Creative Director

A friend of mine at Commander’s Palace was looking for wild duck; a guest chef (Danny Trace, then the executive chef of Brennan’s in Houston), wanted to make a wild duck gumbo. There are plenty of wing shots and hunters at Rouses Markets, but before I could even call Donald or Donny Rouse or anyone else, my dad, eavesdropping on my phone call, piped up with an offer: “I have a freezer full of mallards the judge gave me. The chef can have them if he saves me a bowl of that gumbo.”

My dad loved gumbo. Every year, he stood in line for Prejean’s Pheasant, Quail and Andouille Gumbo at Jazz Fest. He ordered gumbo everywhere he went. A few years back when his blood pressure got too high, and his doctor told him no more soup, my dad — ever the lawyer — tried to argue that gumbo wasn’t soup. There are culinary historians like Lois Eric Elie who would agree that gumbo is neither soup nor stew, but its own category of food (read more at www. rouses.com). But like soup, it was still too salty.

The ducks were in the freezer in the log cabin, the original house on Dad’s property, which served as a guest house. He loaded me down with more than a dozen ducks, including one in a Rouses Markets plastic bag. (Do you, like me, carry all of your bags of groceries on two arms rather than make two trips?)

Commander’s Palace has a dress code, so instead of going straight to the restaurant, I made a stop at my house Uptown to change out of my jeans. My cute little neighbor, Alexander, who I call Salamander, approached as I was getting out of the car. “Whatcha doing?” he asked.

“Bringing ducks to my friends at Commander’s Palace to make gumbo,” I told him. “Ducks! Can I see?”

“They are all wrapped up, but let me look.” One bag, the Rouse Markets bag, was loosely tied, so I handed it to him.

“Look,” I said, “this one still has feathers!”

Salamander opened the bag, peered inside, and screamed, “Those aren’t feathers, that’s fur!”

You know the expression: If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…then it probably is a duck? Well, Salamander was right, this wasn’t a duck. It was a whole squirrel — head, skin, tail and all. Frozen solid.

Squirrels had the run of the place, at least the yard, at my dad’s house. They brazenly ran along the branches of the old oak trees that shaded the pool. Not content with acorns, they stole seeds out of the birdfeeders and oranges from the trees, which dad bought in Plaquemines Parish and planted outside the sunroom.

Dad couldn’t stand the squirrels. He offered a bounty to anyone who shot one. Clearly, someone got one.

No one would admit to putting the whole squirrel in the freezer. Lots of people worked

at my dad’s house at the time; if I stopped by for lunch, there was always a crowd eating in the kitchen. I guess anyone could have been the culprit, though they all denied it. I think Melvin, the gardener, was the likely culprit because he actually ate squirrel.

Trash pickup at my house wasn’t for another few days, and I didn’t want to leave a frozen squirrel defrosting and decomposing in my garbage can, so I threw the Rouses bag in the freezer and slammed the door shut.

Later, when I got to Commander’s, I told them the story. Danny Trace told me, “Oh, don’t worry, my mom kept sparrows in the freezer.” (Sparrows?)