Autumn

Summer is over.

My arugula and basil went to seed.

My big sunflowers died, like friendships that didn't work out.

Crab Gumbo

I've seen crabs try to climb out of just about every container imaginable: sinks, buckets, baskets, boxes, even out of a pot of boiling water at a crab boil on the Potomac -- I was shocked to see people throwing live crabs into the pot; we always pulled their shells off and cleaned them first -- but what I remember best is the way the blue crabs crawled over one another, trying to get out of galvanized wash tubs, when we used to go crabbing along the Texas Gulf Coast. Sundown when the tide was coming in was the best time. We used soup bones for bait. You can hear the crabs' claws clicking and scraping on the metal as they climb on each other's backs, trying to make it up to the rim of the tub. Sometimes a crab makes it to the rim, and it looks like the other crabs pull it down on purpose. I used to feel sorriest for the ones made it all the way out. How do they know to scuttle for the water instead of heading for higher ground? It doesn't matter. The god of the caught crabs always grabbed them and threw them back into the tub anyway.

My mama worked 8 to 5 and cooked supper for three kids when she got home. There are probably a lot of gumbo recipes better than the one I'm about to give you, but I doubt any this good are as quick.

You need those crabs, the ones were climbing over each other and pulling each other down and desperately trying to get on top. You pull their backs off. It's funny how the crabs that make it to the top get their backs pulled off first, isn't it? Not that it does the other crabs any good to lay low. They end up just as dead. Their fates were predestined as soon as they took the bait.

You probably know not to eat the grey gills, so I won't go into that, except to say pull their backs off and clean the crabs under cool, fresh water, break their claws off and break their bodies in half. You can use shrimp instead of the crabs or with the crabs if you want.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of peanut oil in a heavy, stainless steel or enameled pot. You don't want to be putting okra in a cast iron pot.

Chop up a medium onion and a couple of cloves of garlic and sauté them until the onions are glassy. You probably know to smash the garlic with the flat of a heavy knife before you peel it. I didn't know that until a couple of years ago. I used to pick at my cloves of garlic with a little paring knife. Nobody showed me how much easier it was to peel garlic if you smash it first.

Wash a pound-and-a-half of frozen cut okra. You can use cut fresh okra if you want, but my mama never did. Throw the okra in the pot and stir it over medium heat until most of the slime disappears. Then you add 2 8-oz cans of tomato sauce and 2 cans of water. That's the basic amount of sauce for 4 or 5 crabs or a pound of shrimp. I always increase the recipe by doubling everything. 8 or 10 crabs, use 4 cans of tomato sauce and 4 cans of water. Double the oil, onions, garlic and okra, too. Throw in some salt and plenty of pepper.

Boil the sauce until the water is boiled off. You'll be back about where you were before you added the water. Add the crabs or shrimp. They'll give up some water. Boil it off and you're done.

The only spices my mama used were salt and pepper. But you can use bay leaves and cayenne pepper, too. And you can use basil, fennel and thyme to tip the gumbo toward Asia or Louisiana. Basil and fennel move the recipe in the direction of the fine bouillabaisse you get in Vietnamese restaurants that cook in the French tradition. Used to be one in Washington, D.C., around Dupont Circle. Thyme and maybe some celery or celery salt pushes it toward Louisiana gumbo.

Nobody will stop you if you want to peel and seed fresh tomatoes instead of using tomato sauce, but, if you do that, you may as well get Emeril's recipe and spend a couple of hours making gumbo. I've been experimenting with adding some San Marzano cherry tomatoes lately. Another can to open.

Serve over rice. You know how to make rice. Bring 2 cups of salted water to a boil. Dump in a cup of rice and stir. Cover and reduce the heat to low simmer for 20 minutes. Do not touch the lid until 20 minutes is up and you turn the heat off. If you peek, somebody has to yell at you and you have to start over. The greatest trick you'll ever turn in life is finding the right person to yell at you.

French bread is good. Dry white wine or beer go best for me. Champagne is good, too.

If you figure out why it is gumbo and rice takes forever to get cool enough to eat, please let me know.

If you figure out where those crabs think they're going, pulling each other down and crawling over each other's backs to get there, you can let me know that, too.

The Bottom Line On The Polanski Bust

Roman Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland on a U.S. warrant, issued in 1978 when Polanski fled the country after being convicted of having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Polanski is 76. He survived the Krakow ghetto, his parents died at Auschwitz, his wife and unborn child were brutally murdered by Charles Manson's "family." He's one of the world's most talented and successful makers of film, and he was entering Switzerland to be honored at the Zurich film festival when he was busted. He and his victim -- she's 45-years-old now and has joined Polanski's petition to overturn his conviction -- reached a settlement years ago.

In the Seventies, some people thought Polanski was being persecuted. Others, including The Smoking Gun, have been crying for the brilliant director's that little pervert's blood for years.

I think the latest Polanski flap is a lot of fun.

The fact that Polanski could walk around France safely for 30 years, then be busted by Switzerland the minute he stepped into the country to get a highly publicized award -- although he owns a home there -- tells us a lot about those two countries. Say what you want to about the French, France has always been a place to go and thumb your nose at the U.S. if you want to.

Apparently, the Swiss have an extradition agreement with the U.S. and the French don't. Who knew that about the Swiss? It looks like Polanski didn't.

And then, there's the conspiracy angle. Was Polanski set up by the Zurich Film Festival and the Swiss Police? Or was this Polanski's sensational way of turning himself in? We'll probably know by the end of the week. The U.S. is under pressure to move on this one.

Update: France and Poland urged Switzerland to free Polansky on bail and pressed U.S. officials all the way up to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the case. The Swiss said there was a chance Polanski could be released on bail if he promised not to flee the country.

Update 2: Polanski has decided to fight. His lawyer says the U.S. extradition request is illegal. I figure he has about as much chance as those tax evaders who thought the Swiss wouldn't turn their bank records over to the U.S.

Update 3: Polanski's lawyers say the U.S. never tried to catch Polanski before. The L.A. prosecuters say they did, including one time they thought he was headed for Thailand.

Update 4: The French are outraged. "There's an America we love and an America that scares us," French Culture Minister FrÉdÉric Mitterrand said, "and it's that latter America that has just shown us its face." Mitterrand said he and French President Nicolas Sarkozy (shown below with President Obama and an unidentified girl) hoped for a "rapid resolution to the situation which would allow Roman Polanski to rejoin his family as quickly as possible."

Are Frogs Reptiles?

Fanged frogs? Looks like things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. 18 new reptiles v. only 2 new mammals? One of the mammals is a bat, though. Can always use more bats.

Gigantes

Couple of months ago, I tossed some sunflower seeds into the corner of my front yard. I had no idea how big these Mexican sunflowers could get or how hard it would be to get rid of them.

Foot Fault

The U.S. Open and professional tennis disappeared up its fundamental orifice this weekend, when the insanity of letting a petty bureaucrat make a decision that could cost her a million dollars drove Serena Williams over the brink.

Professional tennis players play for prizes and advertising money that, on a per player basis, makes the stakes they play for as high as or higher than any other sport. Hundreds of millions of people all over the world watch them play.

There is no appeal, no reprieve, no instant replay that, reviewed by a competent official, can overturn the call of a foot fault by a mediocre judge. Nothing can reverse a lame call that mistakes a heel in the air above a line for a toe on the line. Nothing can undo the cry: Foot Fault! once it's been blurted out.

I wish I could shove this ball down your throat! Serena shouted. I wish she could shove it up professional tennis' ass.

Rubbish!

I have a thought about Joe Wilson calling Obama a liar on national television. When it happened, I laughingly told Suzanne: The British don't even call the Prime Minister a liar during Q and A.

However, reading a Gail Collins op ed this morning, I was reminded the British do hurl insults back and forth, and I suddenly remembered Tony Blair delivering an answer about the Iraq invasion while someone on the back bench repeatedly shouted: Rubbish! I was rolling on the floor laughing.

In plain American, that would be "Bullshit!"

I can't help thinking the State Of The Union might be advanced if the opposition were allowed an occasional "Bullshit!" when the President addresses Congress.

The Knights Of Science

If this is propaganda, it's well done.

Authorities in Pakistan's Swat Valley have resumed vaccinating children for polio, a practice the Taliban had banned as un-Islamic before they were beaten back by an army offensive.

I have to admit there's part of me could back a modern crusade to spread science and medicine around the world, even at the point of a gun. Complex issue.

Which America?

According to an AP survey, America doesn't stack up when it comes to child welfare. America has some of the industrial world's worst rates of infant mortality, teenage pregnancy and child poverty.

That depends on which America you're talking about. I'm guessing if you broke that survey down by America I and America II, you'd find out America I is right up there with the best of them. It's child welfare in America II is dragging our numbers down.