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BEANS & RICE
But mostly, I learned that folks,
when asked, “What should I
cook tonight?” would pick red
beans and rice more than any
other option.
And since then, I’ve cooked
pots of red beans in dozens if not hundreds of home kitchens. I’ve
introduced the proper ingredients (red beans,Louisiana smokehouse
sausage) into kitchens from Berlin to Bethesda, from Seattle to San
Diego. Even put out a spread in a converted medieval pigeon house
in southwest France.
The big lessons? Simple almost always works. And always double-
check the pilot light.That’s just good policy.
Finding the Tales: Road Show 2009
In 2009, the haphazard “road trip with a little cooking” got flipped
on its head, as road show and kitchen work got all smushed together
in the Roadshow’s first incarnation. In the summer of that year,
I found myself between gigs and recently returned from a one-
year stint in Kentucky. After six months back in Louisiana, I came
down with a bad case of what my grandmother called “itchy heels”
— a congenital case of persistent wanderlust that affects certain
members of our family. Once the heels start to itch, you gotta get
on the road.
Drawn by friends’ invitations and a chance to experiment, I built
a simple website at
www.redbeansroadshow.com, made a big
Rouses run, loaded up the truck and turned the road trip into a
barnstorming storytelling project. With a side of cornbread.
The thing that made this time different from any other was a focus
on story. The tables were small (target size: about 10 or whoever
fits), but the folks who gathered ‘round were amazing. With guest
lists largely out of my control, the ‘09 Roadshow was a chance to
eavesdrop and learn from the folks who dropped by for the night.
The beans were a constant, but the room changed with every event.
I honed the valuable skill of eavesdropping on the stories told at
the table. I cooked for musicians, chefs, artists and New Orleans
royalty post-storm exile. I fed gaggles of kids, tech people, circus
folk, writers on beachside retreat and the occasional nun. I scribbled
down their dinner table quotes (always out of context, usually
hilarious) and put them up on the website.
At the end of the trip, I’d
driven 2900 miles through
seven states, cooked in five
(Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
both Carolinas), and learned
how to collect unpredictable,
wonderful kitchen stories. If
not for a last-minute invitation to a traditional Louisiana supper,
those laughs, those tales might just have never emerged.
Playing Bigger Rooms: The Modern-Day Roadshow
Which brings us, of course, right back to the kitchen in DC. In
a lot of ways, this kickoff to a different
kind
of roadshow shares a
common DNA with the other incarnation of the red beans table —
whether it be with friends in Berlin or at my home-base in New
Orleans. But one critical element is different: this “cooking show” is
open to the public and prone to chance.
The idea of reviving the road show came when Chef Ann Cashion
(like other friends before her) made a simple statement after a
Monday night dinner in New Orleans. The table was clean and
the dishwasher running. Over a traditional whiskey nightcap, she
stated a challenge.
“We should do this at my restaurant. (pause) I’m serious.”
“It is amazing how fast strangers can become
friends over the dinner table.”
—Donald Rouse, 2
nd
Generation
photo by
Pableaux Johnson