I joined the Army Reserves out of high school to help pay for college. I got lucky and ended up in a section that was full of some of the greatest people ever and even now, 30 years later, I still keep in touch with many of them regularly. One of them was a guy named Jay Cobb; he was a sergeant from Plymouth, NH, a laid back Deadhead with a quick, sardonic wit. As per usual these days, we reconnected on Facebook several years back and still chat every so often.
A month or so ago, Jay messaged and said he had an Army friend who had recently arrived here on Camp Humphreys and as everyone who arrives here does, she was in quarantine for two weeks. He said she was suffering from the horrible Army food they were feeding her and asked if I might be willing to bring her some of the food I had been cooking. Of course I said no problem because, well, that's just the kind of guy I am.
I quickly discovered that Jay's friend - Ayla Papp is her name, which I think might be the coolest name EVER - is a complete foodie. She was so appreciative of the food that both Virginia and I made for her in quarantine that we started talking constantly about food, recipes, etc. and she shared some pics of her own dishes that just looked incredible and it became obvious that she is my spirit animal...it turns out she is from Louisiana and she vowed that when she got out of quarantine, she would come make her special homemade gumbo for us. This pleased me greatly as I absolutely love cajun food - jambalaya, red beans and rice, etouffé, crawfish bread...and ESPECIALLY gumbo. Well, today was that day. Ayla Papp (I call her Ayla-Papp because it's just such a cool first and last name combination) came over and made for us her special homemade gumbo with chicken and andouille sausage. And it...was...glorious.
Oh, but there is more to this story. Much, much more. First, let's see the pics of the gumbo, then I'll deliver the second, more incredible part of the story:
Ayla Papp just HAD to wear my Italian apron...
She did a dry roux since the sausage already had a high fat content
She said the dry roux should achieve the color of chocolate and this looks like it did!
She added the roux to the meat mixture, added water and stirred it all together
Then let it "simmah down" for a long time...
The finished product, served over rice. So. Freaking. Delicious. AUTHENTIC Cajun flavors, it was just so good.
So now we come to the incredible part of the story...
Those of you who have known me for a while know that one of my best friends in the world was killed in the Fort Hood shooting back in April of 2014. His name was SFC Danny Ferguson and he was extremely close to us and especially to Xavier in particular. I won't go into the whole story here but for anyone who doesn't know the history, here is the blog post I wrote telling the whole story; if you don't know it, you should read it before reading this story any further:
After we finished eating, we were having a nice conversation about everything under the sun and at one point, Ayla Papp mentioned that her husband is back in the US because he's a police officer, I asked whereabouts and she said Killeen, which is where Fort Hood (Texas) is. I cannot hear the name Fort Hood without immediately thinking of the senseless shooting that took my friend's life and so I asked her how long she had been stationed there. She told me, I quickly did the math in my head and then looked at Virginia and said "OMG, I think she was there when it happened...". I asked her about the shooting and to my shock, she was not just there, she was in Fergusi's unit. I shared with her the story of our friendship with Fergusi and we all just sort of sat there, in awe of the crazy circumstances that had brought us together. As I spoke about Fergusi I got choked up as I always do when I talk about him and I could feel the goddamned tears welling up in my eyes as they always do so I kept it short but I just can't believe that this new person that we had met almost by chance had a direct connection to our Fergusi. I swear, I'm actually welling up again just thinking about it...
It really is a small world. And an even smaller Army...
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