Sunday, November 14, 2010 an Acadian Birthday Party

It's interesting to know how people celebrate birthdays.  We were invited to Dave's son's birthday party.  Now we had never met Dave, but since he plays guitar at Betty's RV Park once in a while and since we are guests of Betty's, we were all invited out to his home in the country for gumbo and music.  This is just another example (one of many) of the generosity and loving spirit of these people.  When we arrived, we found George from our RV park out back fishing in Dave's pond and several others of us found pecans on the ground and started cracking, shelling and eating.  In the meantime, Jerry and Ian just had to go down the road to check out the sugar cane harvesting going on and almost got arrested for tresspassing...(not really, but they unknowingly crossed some territory that was hostile.)  He'll have to tell you about it sometime.

We then went to the front patio where the gumbo was bubbling in a huge pot over a wood fire.  Dave had started at 6 AM getting the fire going, starting the water to boil and adding the meat...hens (old fryers) and andouille sausage.  This is not a cheap dish to make with lots of meat in it along with tasso (smoked ham chopped very fine) and lots of spices and veggies.  Dave urged Vicki and me to try some of the broth.  The aroma was so enticing and the sample delicious!

Soon we were all trooping into the house to grab large bowls of rice and french bread hunks and back out to scoop ladles-full of gumbo into our bowls.  It suddenly got really quiet as we all consumed.  Back for seconds or desserts.  Groan...

After some digestion time, Dave and his friend Judy Bailey grabbed their guitars and sang to us for an hour.  (Judy was the 1981 /ACM top 5 female vocalist) and we enjoyed their music! 



The weather could have been nicer - cloudy and kind of clammy and it did sprinkle on us as we were leaving.  But the warm hospitality was enough to keep us happy.  Good times.  Good friends!  Good food!  God is awesome!