O'Gara's Jambalaya or laissez les bons temps rouler

So I was thumbing through the recipes the other day and I found one for jambalaya.  I actually have a very good recipe for jambalaya given to me by my cousin who lived in New Orleans.  I love it so much the printed out email is crackly from greasy water damage.  I don’t really need to look at it, honestly.  She gave it to me seven years ago… and it’s a favorite dish to cook at this time of year or in the last waning days of summer.  My favorite part of that recipe is the suggestion to have a beer while cooking it.

But this is the recipe that I found in Gram’s box.

O’Gara’s Jambalaya
(Only Gram would have an Irish version of jambalaya.  Though to be fair, O’Gara is specifically Diane O’Gara from 1972)
1 lb. sausage
1 lb. cooked ham
2 c. cooked shrimp (or frozen fresh)
1 clove garlic minced
2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp. butter
1 onion chopped
1 bunch shallots (minced with tops)
1 green pepper chopped
4 tomatoes chopped and cut down
2 c. rice (vary as to occasion)
3 c. water

Brown sausage.  Cut sausage and ham into pieces.  Melt butter in heavy saucepan or Dutch oven.  Add onion, garlic, green pepper, shallots, and cook 10 min over medium heat, stirring frequently.  Reduce heat to low and add tomatoes, sausage, and ham.  Stir until all ingredients are blended.  Add shrimp, water, rice – judge for amount of rice needed – salt.  Stire 1-2 times.  Cook slowly!   1 hour or until water is absorbed and rice is tender.

I adjusted this because I make jambalaya often enough.  Firstly, I used expensive ham to avoid nitrates.  I eat ham like twice a year, so I figured whatever.  I used Andouille sausage because that’s what I always use for jambalaya.  Then rather than use butter, I just cooked the veggies in the juice/oil from the sausage.  Instead of salt, I used a Cajun seasoning mix I had.  I also don’t much like rice, so I cut it in half.  It’s still cooking slowly (!) now… but smells sooo good.

This time of year, actually, is the reason I have any mind to cook jambalaya.  After Hurricane Katrina, I started hosting Mardi Gras parties.  It was my first committed effort to hosting theme parties… and also a desire to take my career in fundraising home.  The first year was a pretty decent affair, with food from NOLA.  The next year I took the party up about five notches, when my cousin’s husband brought his band to play in our living room. 

We charged a cover and sent the money to support jazz musicians still recovering from Katrina.  I had intentions of growing it… but I moved, life changed… and I got sidetracked by other things.

But that party in 2007 was a helluva party.  One very special night I will always remember on so many levels.  Probably the highlight of my life at the amazing apartment I had in Washington Park, the highlight of time with that group of friends, and a memory of my grandmother... wearing a boa.

I thought of this photograph the minute I saw that recipe for jambalaya.  I thought of how she came to my party, supported my evening, supported my cousin’s band, and… even at 86 years, she liked a night out.

As I was thinking about what I would write in this blog, I heard her telling me – as she often did – that her grandchildren and children made life interesting.  She did say that or some other version of that phrase often.  I often nodded and shrugged, not convinced my life was that interesting.  There was a variation to that statement about how she learned things through us.  I thought about that statement and how willing and appreciative she was to come to our parties, our concerts, our plays, our graduations, our homes across the state… the country… a book signing, a fundraiser, a new home, to see a new baby, go to a museum, a garden, a favorite restaurant… and always with such joy and gratitude.  There were often hand written notes of that appreciation the week after.  Or a newspaper clipping… because she was always thinking of us, always proud in her own way of what we did… and glad to be a part of it.

When we cleaned out the pieces from her house a few weeks ago, there was a newspaper from 1996 folded up with the pictures of our little Olson family.  It was from a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which I played Helena.  She kept that all those years.  And I know there was something from all of us, whether it was a program, a recipe, a photograph, or something with which to remember a small adventure she took to learn more about the world and the world of her grandchildren.

A phrase that is often used in Mardi Gras is “Laissez les bons temps rouler (let the good times roll).”  I think Gram did that with every day of her life.  She let them roll with every patronage to her offspring’s homes, performances, and celebrations.  And they keep on rolling.