I've been working on writing up my sausage, crawfish and shrimp gumbo recipe, and realized that there are so many parts to it that it might be best to post each separately. Each can certainly stand on its own, and it is not unusual for me to do one part, say boil shrimp weeks or even months before I make gumbo.

There are 3 main parts, or acts, to the gumbo recipe: Stock, roux, and everything else. The stock part is the one I frequently do ahead of time, and even make another meal out of it. There are some shortcuts to roux, and you can make it ahead of time. The one thing that you cannot do is predict exactly how the finished product will taste.

I will be making multiple blog posts for each act of the gumbo performance.