But
that’s not the Gumbo Shop’s way.
The Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, held each
spring, takes place four doors away from the restaurant at Le
Petit Theatre. Every year there’s a “Stella and Stanley’
shouting contest. Since the contest’s beginning, one of many
ways the restaurant connects to locals as well as visitors is
to offer a prize of dinner at Gumbo Shop. One of their always
creative newspaper ads has a tee shirted hunk yelling, “Stella
– I want my gumbo!”
And there’s a reason why the t-shirt was a regular part of
the Kowalski wardrobe. In New Orleans it gets hot. To find dishes
like hearty gumbo and heavy red beans a traditional staple may
seem odd, but we do have our sub-tropical climate to thank for
the vegetables that also make up our diet. In addition to the
outside heat, it is also reflected in the way our food tastes.
We aren’t shy with the pepper.
As a native New Orleanian, one of my duties is to answer the eternal
question from visitors who cross my path. Where to eat? For value
quality and convenience, consistently at the top of my list has
been the Gumbo Shop.
Excerpted from local historian Peggy Scott Laborde’s foreword
to Gumbo Shop, A New Orleans Restaurant Cookbook
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