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My Family’s Gumbo
Kim Robinson

3 lbs. snow crab, cleaned and washed
15 chicken wings, washed and cleaned
1 lb. chicken gizzards, chopped fine
4 lbs. diced smoked sausage (Hillshire Farms).
Fry lightly to remove some fat
3 lbs large shrimp, peeled and deveined
4 packs dried shrimp
2 lbs. baby shrimp
4 stalks of cleaned and diced celery
3 diced onions
3 packs of onion soup mix
2 cans of okra; preferably “Trappeys” brand. Drain off liquid and fry in ¼ cup of oil. This removes the slime
Gumbo file (ground sassafras leaves)
Lawry’s seasoning salt
Black pepper
Celery salt
Prepared rice

Roux:
1 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup of flour
If you prefer a thicker soup, add more flour. Heat the oil over medium heat. Sprinkle flour over grease while constantly stirring, so as not to scorch, based on your preference. I prefer a nut brown or caramel color. Some people like a darker roux. You can always taste as you go along. Set aside.

Gumbo
Use a large stockpot. Fill half way with water and set on high to boil. You can divide ingredients into 2 or 3 smaller pots. I prefer this method, because it takes awhile to get the water to boil. It will also decrease the chance of your Gumbo sticking to the bottom. There is nothing worse than a burnt pot of Gumbo. “Chile just thinking about it makes me want to cry.” Gumbo is something that every time it’s made it just gets better as you add or take away ingredients to tailor to your taste, much like a fine suit of clothes. Other variations have bell pepper, tomato puree, oysters, crawfish, rabbit, turkey or chicken, parsley, green onion and garlic. I could fill this book up with various ways to prepare this dish. Do not be afraid to experiment.

Add gizzards, onion, celery, onion soup mix, dried shrimp and sausage. When it reaches a rapid boil, reduce flame to low and cook for an additional 20 minutes. Add Roux and stir. Add chicken, crab legs, okra, black pepper, seasoning and celery salt. Be very careful with celery salt, it can overpower the other flavors. Add 1 teaspoon to entire pot. You can always go back and add more. Boil for 35 to 40 minutes. Add shrimp and boil 5 minutes more. Remove from heat add 1 teaspoon of gumbo file to each pot. Serve in a bowl over rice. Sprinkle file to taste. Do not be afraid to get your fingers dirty. Also, do not forget to suck the gravy out of the crab legs before you open them up.

Kim Robinson

Yes I am bald in this picture. I have alopecia and have learned to live and be comfortable with it. During the warm summer months I don’t bother with anything but a razor. If anyone is considering doing a book signing in the Los Angeles area I suggest you try Yealang’s Soul Folks Café.

I am confident that my writing will be a catalyst to help souls who are in negative downward spirals. I thank God every day for my parents and Grandmother’s encouragement, without it I would not be alive. I think that writing is the way for me to use my life experiences to help others know that they can get out of gangs, do some positive things that can make just as much money legally as selling drugs, themselves or others out

For me it took a relationship with God to show me that there is a reason for my existence, a positive beautiful purpose. At this point in my life the only cuts I have to worry about are paper, and the only shots are my beautiful children’s immunizations.
I love sewing. My father was a tailor and watching him inspired me. I remember, the first thing I ever made, a halter top, the kind with the choker ring around the neck. I attached some yellow yarn as hair, buttons for eyes, and for lips, a red licorice. Well, I can tell you that the California sun had that licorice melting all over the place, but every little girl in the neighborhood was exchanging their toys for one. I sewed through high school and was in the modeling club, where I and my friends showcased my designs. Remember, this was the late 70’s and Superfly and Cleopatra Jones was ‘The Thang.’ I started making long coats and lace up pants out of recycled Levi’s. I made pretty good money and have been sewing every since. There is nothing I love more than completing a project or an outfit, especially the mommy and me clothes for my kids. You can view some of my work in the Seamstress Gallery.
Currently I am writing a story entitled “Street life to Housewife,” the title speaks for itself. I have four other books near completion. One is best described as ‘Murder she wrote for the hood.’ G-mama is a sixty eight year old, ex gang banger/ex hustler, who sits in her rocking chair solving crimes that cross her porch. She believes that the penitentiary ‘ain’t nothing but college for criminals’ and there is a way to do penance for your crimes that will make things right in God’s eyes. My goal is an eight book series.
I am close to completion on ‘God ain’t spelled Government.’ Alumni of Dominguez High School, Class of 77’ has leaked a government conspiracy at her twenty year class reunion. The Government does not know who she leaked to, so they set out to kill everyone who attended the reunion.
I am working on a cookbook, a collection of recipes from friends, and family throughout the world. I love food. Anyone walking behind me can attest to that. I think that the best and most wonderful gift you can give a person is a good meal. In my grandmother’s café, I watched her drag people off the streets and feed them. People swore her food had healing for the soul in it. She said “ain’t nothing that ails a person a good plate of food can’t cure,” and the proof was in the pudding. People take all kinds of medicines that have so many side effects that they end up sicker then when they started out. Herbs, fruits and vegetables have different healing powers. In this cook book I try to show how onions, garlic, ginger etc. can help you live a longer healthier life.
There are three books I have come to rely upon. One is the ‘Green Pharmacy’ the other is ‘Live right for your type.’ I also am grateful for my Holistic Therapist that with his wonderful cures and teas have helped me through quite a few medical problems. You can read about Zion and see what he can do he has his own chapter in this book..
The last and most important is the Bible, though I don’t claim to understand all of it, I find a lot of answers in these pages. You have a wonderful blessed life.

CHAPTER 1 The Roux in the Gumbo - Gizelle

Gizelle welcomed the feel of the cool sheets against her skin. She crawled exhausted into her bed, naked as always during the humid summer. As Gizelle slept, her subconscious took her back to a night twenty years ago in 1850. She was twelve years old and alone in the middle of the night. Scared, tired, hungry and sick, she sat crying and shivering under a huge magnolia tree in driving rain, deep in the bayou near Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Gizelle decided to sit and wait. Surely, one of the water moccasins or some deadly spider would put her out of her misery. No matter what, she was not going back to the plantation.

Before Gizelle was old enough to be weaned, she had been wrenched from her mother’s breast and sold to the Sunrise Plantation. They should have called it the Graveyard because so many slaves were buried there. They worked clearing the bayous so the boats could navigate through the waters to bring in materials to build plantation homes and slave quarters. They also brought in seed and supplies to cultivate the fields of cotton, rice, sugar cane, anything that was agriculturally profitable.

The overseers did not allow slaves who labored in the fetid water to get out as they watched others pulled under by the alligators. If the poisonous snakes and spiders did not kill them, the elements would. They worked regardless of rain or snow. Those who fell ill were left on the bank to die. The owners could always buy more slaves.

During the epidemics, cholera and yellow fever laid claim to many. Hundreds expired from colds, croup or the many diseases that thrived in the swampy water. The soles of their feet split open from the fungus brought on by standing in dirty water for too long. They bound their feet with bandages but without proper treatment, the cuts developed gangrene. The limbs were amputated. Cripples sat in pirogues to transfer the debris from the water to the bank. A slave was lucky to make it through a year working at Sunrise.

Gizelle’s dark skin dictated that by the age of four she be sent to the fields to pick cotton. When she was nine years old, the overseer gave her a gift. He raped her. He had been doing so for three years now. He had very strange and unnatural desires; Gizelle could not take it anymore. She would prefer death to the tortured existence she was living.

Each time lightning brightened the sky, Gizelle prayed for God to end her life. Finally, the storm passed. She gathered Spanish moss from the trees and made a pallet. She closed her eyes, hoping they would never again open.

“Cher, Cher, Wake up Chile! What are you doing here? Get up Cher you are soaking wet. Come with me. Open your eyes!” The voice said.

Gizelle heard the words but did not want to open her eyes. She did not want to be alive. Maybe God was a woman, or maybe he was busy and had sent an angel for her. She peeked out with one eye. Nope it was not God; God did not have long white hair that hung down to his waist. She opened the other eye and looked into eyes that looked like a cats; colored a greenish gray. Her face was soft with what seemed to be concern. No one had ever looked at Gizelle with such kindness.

“Can you stand Cher? Are you hurt?” The woman touched Gizelle’s forehead and found it burning with fever. “You poor Chile, you come with Tallulah, I will make you better,” The woman said.

Gizelle rose shakily to her feet and leaned against the strange woman. Tallulah was the tallest woman she had ever seen. When Gizelle got so dizzy she could not walk, Tallulah carried her.

Tallulah took her to a cabin built three feet above the ground alongside a creek, allowing the water to flow under rather than through the house when the water was high. It was a cozy habitat.

Three large rooms were more than adequate for Tallulah. One, a large inviting kitchen kept warm by the stove where she prepared her food. Another was the bedroom, which boasted a four-poster bed with night tables and an armoire that covered an entire wall. The custom furniture would have done any mansion proud. The last room had a massive desk on one wall. The other three walls were bookshelves, overflowing with books and mementos of her life. The collection of Indian and French artifacts spoke volumes about Tallulah’s heritage.

Gizelle dreamed that someone removed her wet clothes and placed her in a large metal basin filled with lavender scented water that had been warmed in a teakettle that sat on the top of a big pot-bellied stove. Her hair gently washed and braided. She was spooned hot soup; the tastiest she had ever eaten, nothing like the slop at Sunrise. The woman held a cup for her so that she could sip delicious honey-sweetened herb tea. It soothed and warmed her from the inside out.

Once out of the tub, Gizelle’s body was rubbed down with oils that made her skin feel smooth and soft like a babes. The towel was soft as freshly ginned and cleaned cotton. She wondered if she was dreaming, or maybe this was heaven. Wherever she was, this was where she wanted to be.

Gizelle awoke in the comfort of a soft feather mattress. “This must be how the people in the big house slept.” She thought. She was afraid that if she moved, her surroundings would disappear and she would find herself back on the floor of her cabin. Tallulah warmed the sheets by filling a bottle with hot water and rolling it between them. The quilt smelled as if it were filled with fragrant flowers. She drifted back to sleep.

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