live blogging fresh okra gumbo

This cannot wait. On the stove, at this very minute, is a simmering pot of roux, okra (picked yesterday from my mom's garden), organic tomatoes--hold that thought, I've gotta go stir--farm onions, and garlic.

It is the very incarnation of what I grew up calling gumbo; Ryan just said, "I've never had a gumbo with tomato sauce in it." His version of gumbo looks like Mississippi mud and offers bits of crawdads and shrimp in every bite. My version of gumbo--the stuff my mom ladeled into our bowls on the summer dinner table without restraint--is chock-full of veggies and, to me, tastes like heaven.

It's still simmering. I'll fill you in very, very soon.