One of my favorite uncles lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland and his sweet Georgia-born neighbor was Mrs. Rosa Nell Spriggs. One time my Aunt and Uncle went to Europe and left my mother in charge of their kids. She was wallpapering the dining room and accidentally cut off the tip of a finger, so she sent one of the boys next door to get Mrs. Spriggs to drive her to the hospital. After that, they were fast friends, and after my mother died, I stayed in touch.

When Mrs. Spriggs died I told Uncle John he had to go over there when they cleaned out her house and get me something out of her kitchen so I'd have a memento of her. "I don't care if you have to go through her trash and one of the supreme court judges is driving by," I told him. (It's a very high-end suburb of Washington DC and John Edwards lives a couple houses away.) Here is her recipe for chicken gumbo she said she got from someone in 1948.

Chicken Gumbo

1 roasting chicken
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon lard
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon flour
2 chopped onions
1 teaspoon chopped parsley
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg or ground mace
8 cloves
1 bay leaf, crushed
1/4 teaspoon sweet marjoram, chopped
2 - 4 cups chicken stock or water and bouillon cubes
1 quart small oysters and their liquor
1 tablespoon file powder (it's a cajun ingredient)
1 cup rice

Pepper and salt the cleaned and disjointed chicken. Melt butter and lard in a deep pot and brown the chicken. Sprinkle flour over it and e careful of burning. Add onions, parsley, nutmeg or mace, whole cloves, and herbs but not the file powder. Pour in a little of the stock. Let stew gently, stirring to prevent burning. Add more broth and liquor from oysters and let chicken simmer, covered, for about 2 hours. Keep adding broth as needed to keep it the texture of a thick stew, not dry. 20 minutes before serving turn up the heat and add the oysters. Let them heat in the hot stew until plumped and hot through.

Meanwhile, boil the rice in 2 cups salted water for 10 minutes in a tightly covered kettle. Set in a warm place and keep covered 10 minutes. Each grain should be separate.

Put a generous serving of rice in hot soup plates. Stir the file powder into the gumbo and pour the gumbo over the rice, bones and all. Crab or cooked ham may be added when the chicken is half cooked. And you could leave out the oysters and add shrimp at the very end, cooking until just pink.

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Are you wondering what Uncle John sent me from Mrs. Spriggs's kitchen? Some of those little aluminum Jello molds and a round chopper thing. The chopper thing was like one my mother had many years ago and I'd forgotten about, so I am thrilled to have it, it's like a double memento.