By PAULETTE LASH RITCHIE
Published October 24, 2004
I guess it's time to tell the okra story. It came up again recently in idle conversation, and it is not going to go away. So here it is.
I have heard it said that you either love okra or hate it. I am very fond of okra, but didn't realize it until 25 years ago, when my boyfriend and I were walking through a supermarket.
He spotted okra among the produce and declared he liked it. What could I do? I was the girlfriend, trying to impress the boyfriend, so I bought some and took it home to my family to practice cooking it.
I had never cooked okra before and figured I would handle it like every other vegetable I had ever cooked. I sliced it, threw it in a pot and, as my daddy would say, boiled the living bejabbers out of it. Now, anyone the least bit familiar with okra would know that this was a very bad idea.
I ended up with very unpalatable-looking lumpy green slime. And, guess what? My guinea pigs refused to eat it. (And I don't mean real guinea pigs.)
My mother was not home at the time. I was testing my okra-cooking skills on my dad and sisters. (I have a lot of sisters, but that's another story.)
My mother had just recently bought some new dishes. The slime was resting in one of the new bowls. Clearly, the okra was doomed to be dumped, but I couldn't bear the idea of tossing an entire bowl of food - even questionable food - into the trash. It just seemed wrong.
So I asked my dad to take it outside and bury it. He took the bowl but had what he thought was a simpler and better method of disposal. We lived on a canal in West Palm Beach, and he just heaved it in. Unfortunately, the bowl slipped out of his hand and ended up in the canal, too.
He didn't say a word, and soon I heard strains of music as he had settled down on the back porch to play his mandolin. (Here I'll be using a little poetic license, because I can't recall the exact words, but you'll get the idea.)
I asked if he had buried the okra.
"No."
"Well, where is it?"
"In the canal."
"Where's the bowl?"
"In the canal."
I ran out to the water's edge and, sure enough, there was the now-empty bowl floating in the water, too far from shore to reach. My dad temporarily abandoned his instrument and tried fishing it out with a fishing pole. No luck. Then some brilliant family member - it was probably me - thought of Aunt Peggy's pool skimmer.
Aunt Peggy and Uncle Joe lived about two blocks away. I took one of my sisters, jumped into my VW Bug and scooted over.
Aunt Peggy answered the door. "My okra was slimy, and I need -"
"Oh, let me tell you about how to cook okra," interrupted my aunt.
"No, no, Aunt Peggy. I need your pool skimmer." There was plenty of time later for okra lessons. Right now we were all in danger of facing a one-less-bowl mom. There was no time to lose.
Now, I can't imagine what went through the minds of my younger sister and me. (I can't recall which sister I actually took. I think it was Melanie, but that remains a controversy to this day.) But instead of sensibly holding the skimmer against the outside of the car, we had it crosswise through both front windows, sticking out on both sides. It was astonishingly dimwitted of us, but luckily there was little traffic and only two blocks to go.
The plan worked. We successfully scooped the bowl out of the canal, and Mom would not have suspected a thing - if everybody hadn't told her.
So I was back to the original issue: how to cook okra. Here is what I learned. You can marry a man and not know how to cook okra, and the absolute best way to enjoy okra is to eat out.
Paulette Lash Ritchie covers Top of the Class for the Citrus Times.
