The Gumbo Guys: The Love Pot By Candy Sagon Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, April 15, 1998; Page E01

Brian Bowdre and Rodney King. (By Dayna Smith/The Washington Post)

Rodney King, 30, and Brian Bowdre, 36, rule in the fish department of the Fresh Fields Whole Foods Market in Reston. They've got the patter, they've got the smiles and, best of all, they've got the Gumbo.

Their black, Rubenesque pot of seafood gumbo sits between the two glass display cases of fresh fish, and all day long customers make a pilgrimage to its chubby curves.

Dip goes the ladle. "Hey, Brian, how ya doin'?" Dip, dip. "Rodney, did you make it spicy today?" Dip, dip, dip. Then, inevitably, scrape – the gumbo's gone and a new pot has to be made.

But if you're expecting to find some after 6:30 p.m., dream on. The last pot of the day goes fast, especially when the looking-for-a-takeout-dinner crowd hits on their way home.

"In the evenings, if I don't have it ready, oh, man . . .," King says. And then he laughs that booming, infectious laugh that makes even the most harried customers slow their carts and smile.

Both King and Bowdre learned to cook as kids. Both are still enthusiastic cooks at home. Yet neither man made gumbo until they were hired by Fresh Fields.

"Clam chowder, lobster chowder, etoufee, but no gumbo," says King, who joined Fresh Fields six years ago. "My wife won't touch the stuff."

But as manager of the fish department at various Fresh Fields stores in the area, he quickly figured out that great gumbo is good for business.

For one thing, says King, gumbo is a good way to use up leftover fish, which helps cut down on waste and cost for the store.

Second, if it's made well, "gumbo will fly out the door," he says, especially in areas where customers like spicy food.

And third: "Bragging rights!" he says, tipping back in his chair in a small office near the fish department. "We have to beat the deli's clam chowder!" he says, laughing and slapping his hand on the chair arm. "We have to compete! We want those employees to say, 'Man, we can't keep up!'"

So gumbo became his mission.

The main Fresh Fields commissary provides each store daily with large sealed plastic bags of gumbo base, consisting of lobster and clam stock, vegetables (tomatoes, okra, green peppers, celery and onion), some basic seasonings like garlic and cayenne pepper, and rice. Each store then adds fresh fish and extra spices to the base to make a 2 1/2-gallon pot of gumbo.

To King's way of thinking, lots of fish (to make it thick) and the right combination of extra spices (to jazz up the bland base) were the keys to great gumbo. By the time he joined the Reston store two years ago, he had come up with about five to 10 different seasonings he liked to add, including a lemon-pepper blend, Old Bay, fines herbes, Paul Prudhomme's Cajun Seasoning and a little crab boil mix.

In Reston, he soon was paired with Bowdre, another longtime Fresh Fields employee known for his megawatt smile and high-energy attitude. The Gumbo Guys were born.

Apparently, customers approve.

"We're outselling all the other stores in the area in gumbo," boasts Bowdre. "Customers tell us our gumbo has more fish and better flavor. The other stores send their fish guys here to try and get our secret, but we're on to them."

Bowdre casually mentions that there is a master bottle of "secret spices" he and King keep in the back, but they both note that their secret is not strictly in the spices, "but in taking the time to put all of them in every day." Some stores, they imply, may skimp on seasoning to save time.

Plus, says King, no two pots of gumbo are ever the same because they don't follow an exact recipe for the spices and the mix of fish varieties changes day to day.

"Every day, the big question we get is, 'How is it today?' which really means, 'Is it a rich pot?'" King explains. "The regulars like it when we've used grouper, salmon, tuna or swordfish because they add a richer, stronger flavor to the gumbo."

Bowdre estimates they use eight to 10 different kinds of fish in the gumbo, but never shellfish because of cost as well as food allergy concerns.

In addition, because some customers complain that the gumbo's not spicy enough – while others plead with them not to make it too spicy – the men have begun putting a shaker of a cayenne pepper blend near the pot for those who want to increase the heat to suit themselves.

Like King, Bowdre began cooking as a youngster, starting with breakfast for his four brothers when he was about 12. "I was so good, they fired my mom," he jokes.

Despite his French-sounding last name and gumbo-making skills, Bowdre is not from Louisiana, as some customers assume. "My father's from Newark, my mother is from Atlanta," he says, and he was born in Puerto Rico, one of the family's stops while his father was in the military.

"But I always loved to dabble in food," he says. "I baked a cake when I was 12. Surprised everybody. I just read the back of the box and did it."

These days he loves to grill fish or chicken for dinner, but breakfast is still his favorite. "I love making omelets. I fry up my own bacon and crumble it into the eggs with green pepper and Cheddar cheese," he says.

King, who grew up in Charlotte, N.C., learned to cook from his grandmother when he was 10. "You get that feel early in life for how food should be made – with love," he says, uncharacteristically serious.

That feeling goes for gumbo as well. "The spices you add to the gumbo represent how you feel – your total emotions for the day go in there," King says.

"Oh yeah?" says Bowdre, beginning to laugh.

"Yeah, man. You gotta have that love in your pot," King says, grinning.

"Lo-o-ove. You gotta have that love," Bowdre answers, laughing harder.

"And our gumbo . . ." begins King.

"It's da bomb," finishes Bowdre, both of them laughing so loud now, other Fresh Fields employees walking by the office peek in to see what's going on.

"Those fish guys," says a man who works in the meat department, "they're just having too much fun."

C'mon, you weren't really expecting the Gumbo Guys to give away all their secrets, were you? Basically, they use a combination of spices that includes Cajun seasoning, blackened redfish seasoning, Old Bay, filé powder, lemon-pepper and garlic-pepper blends and crab boil spice. You can mess around with the ratio, depending on how spicy or mild you want it.

Or you can try this basic recipe from "Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking" by Emeril Lagasse and Jessie Tirsch (William Morrow, 1993). Lagasse uses shellfish in his recipe, which the Gumbo Guys don't. If you want an all-fish version, just increase the amount of fish called for in the recipe and leave out the shellfish.