Boy Scouts at Camp Fawcett, Texas.....continued

This is the second of the two part series on Boy Scouts....

Once the Hoe cakes were going real good I started whipping up a batch of buttermilk biscuits.  Steve explained to the scouts that all the major ingredients could be mixed ahead of time with the buttermilk added right before cooking.  He pointed out how the dough is folded gently so that the biscuits will turn out flakey.

  If you roll the dough out to a thickness of about 1” and the biscuits will be nearly 3” tall when done. 

The biscuits get the good crust on the bottom by adding  is a good amount of oil in the pan and sop the top of the cut biscuits when placing them in the pan.  The main question is always:  “how long does it take to make biscuits"?  The answer is a bit complex when you start with arrival time and start with building a fire and getting the appropriate coals for the top and bottom of the Dutch oven…….in essence it only takes about 20 minutes or to cook once the biscuits are in the pan. Getting the appropriate amount of coals on top and bottom and sufficiently screening the wind from blowing the coals is real important to having a good outcome. 

Buttermilk Biscuits

8 Cups of flour

4 tbs baking powder

2 tsp of baking soda

4 tbs of sugar

2 tsp of salt

1 cup of butter flavored Crisco

4 cups of buttermilk (substitute 1 cup vinegar to 1 gallon of milk to make buttermilk)

The weather was for the most part cooperative in that it didn’t get too cold.  There was ice on the ground early morning and the wind blew most of the day but the temperature didn’t remain cold and other than a little wind, it was a beautiful.  We managed to get a big pot of chile cooked up for lunch and served that with onions, cheese, and fritos.  There were several like Mike Kyle that managed to down at least three bowls of the concoction.  It was along about this time that Park Ranger Jack Johnson

came by to give us a special demonstration on making a fire using sticks.  There was a bit of moisture in the air and there was great difficulty in getting the ember.  Jack was very diligent and I am sure making a very interpretive instructor wherever he goes.  Again, I wish we had been able to see some of the things that were going on at Camp Fawcett like:

·         Atl’Atl,

·         Black Powder Shooting

·         Knife Throwing

·         Tomahawk Throwing

         Caber & Cannonball Tossing

·         Flint & Steel Starting

·         Wells Fargo

·         Dutch oven Cooking

·         Old Fashioned Root Beer

·         And the infamous Colter Run

I don’t know if all the events came off as planned as there were some absences in the ranks and the full complement of activities may not have been realized.  However, I find it very impressive that the Boy Scout organizers were able to put together this amazing list of activities to benefit the scouts and traditions they hold.  There are so many things going on for kids these days and I feel that there are none that are more important than what can be learned in scouting.  In my youth, I was a Cup Scout and still think the things I learned as a Cub Scout served me well in later years.  I have no idea why I didn’t pursue the travel into Boy Scouts.  I’m sure I would have been totally consumed by their teachings. 

The final meal for the staff was Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas.  The code of the West, which states “if I give you this recipe-then you can’t give it to someone else.” This recipe was given to me from my friend Carl Hawkins from Santa Fe, New Mexico and he uses it in his catering business so I am bound to keep his secret my secret.  I will say that it is a simple recipe and has a special ingredient that kicks it up several notches.  Hope everyone enjoyed them. 

It was along about suppertime that everyone was pretty well worn out from all of the activities of the day and Steve and I weren’t looking forward to have to load everything on the trailer after the meal was over.  But, not to worry, there were several scouts and scout leaders still around and the chore of loading was diminished considerably and completed almost before it got dark.  

I was privileged to get to spend some quality time with John Martinez.

He is what he calls himself, “a professional scout”.  His title is Wintergarden Senior District Executive.  John is a behind the scenes man who works to get things like this Frontier Day activity organized and supported.  Of course, he is one of many leaders that it takes to pull off all the scouting activities throughout the year.  He says that he enjoys what he does but the true enjoyment comes from being able to participate with the young people and see the benefits of his efforts in the office.  It is also true of the guys that I grew up with as mentioned before, Jimmy, Brad, Billy, Luke, and Michael, whom we got to visit with after they helped us pick up and load everything.  We gathered at the motel in Barksdale and sort of debriefed the day’s activities.  It was clear that these men are Boy Scouts to the bone.  They will do everything within their power to see that the mission of the Boy Scouts is carried out.  And speaking of that mission, it is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the three promises of the Scout Oath.  They are Duty to God and country, Duty to other people, and Duty to self.  

After I was home for a week and finally got my wagon unloaded and the pots and pans washed up I wrote this blog and reflected on what was a wonderful weekend spent with some young and impressionalble minds.  The scout leaders were busy and we didn't get to spend much time together but I was impressed with what they have been able to teach tus far in the lives of these young Scouts.  

Luke Billingsley

I have included a number of pictures I took during the camp but Luke Billingsley and Brad Bradley shot many more of which several are on the Camp Fawcett website. Check it out.

See you on down the trail.............

Boy Scouts at Camp Fawcett, Texas

December 15, 2013

One day a couple of months before Christmas I got an email from my high school friend, Brad Bradley, asking if there was any way possible for me to bring my chuck wagon down to Camp Fawcett, in South Texas, to do some chuck wagon/Dutch oven demonstrations for a bunch of Boy Scouts during their Frontier Days celebration at the camp. Camp Fawcett is located in South Texas on the cool waters of the beautiful Nueces River.  Erasmus Keys Fawcett, born in 1865 and became very interested a newly formed organization called the Boy Scouts.  He took and active role in "scouting" and spent much time helping to develop the organization.  He established Camp Fawcett as a place where the teachings of  the Boy Scouts of American could carry on thier traditions.

I thought going to cook for the Scouts was particularly interesting however the one-way  trip of 500 miles gave me cause to think about it for a bit.  I considered the fact that I would be traveling alone to the camp and don’t always relish those long trips pulling the goose neck trailer and chuck wagon.  I thought that if I could entice my long time friend Steve Woods, from Denton, Texas, to meet me there ….I would agree to do it.  After talking to Steve and us considering the Boy Scouts need for some outdoor cooking, we agreed to go.  My drive was about 8 hours and Steve’s, about 6.  We arrived at Camp Fawcett within ten minutes of each other. There to greet us was Brad Bradley, Jimmy Bradley, Billy Connor, Jim Maxiner, and Stewart Billingsley.  I have seen Brad most recently at a chuck wagon competition in Hondo, Texas a couple of years earlier and that is how my name came up in their conversations about who to invite to the camp.  Billy, I had seen about fifteen or so years ago and the rest, it had been probably close to fifty years.  Some friendships never die and only take just a bit to rekindle the old acquaintances.  

Mountain Men

Steve said several times during the time that we were there that he was truly impressed with our high school kinships and all the memories we sat around and reminisced about.  We sort of all agreed that the friendships we have in Del Rio, Texas are special and above all, LASTING.

After passing all the greetings to each other after so long apart, we all got down to the business at hand--get ready for the scouts.  Billy got busy brush hogging the grass around the area we were to set up the chuck wagon camp.  Everyone fell in and we got the wagon unloaded and set up for the first item on the agenda which was to serve the staff breakfast at 6:30 am the next morning.  All of the necessary things had to be ready to go or else we would have to get up earlier to get it all done.  We figured a wake up alarm at 4:00 am would be ample time to get dressed and to the campsite and get the fires going by 5:00.  Along about the time we were finishing our prep for the next morning many of the Scouts and their leaders were arriving and setting up camp themselves.

We arrived to a cold morning with  frost on everything a little after 5 am but soon had the cooking fires burning and the coffee on to boil.  As Steve and I were doing the preparations for breakfast several of the staff were standing around the nice warm fire, before daylight, drinking thie good old boiling hot cowboy coffee. 

Sunrise Coffee by the fire

That is truly one of my favorite times of the morning; just before daylight.  Of course I always complain about having to get up so early but I always enjoy that time. A little later we got to visit with John Martinez, Boy Scout, Executive Director and he explained to us that he had the best job in the world and that was one of being a Boy Scout 24-7.  Ahh yes, I can only amagine the pleasure his job must give him.  The best part of the job he described as being able to be out "in the field" with fellow scouts on an outing such as this one at Camp Fawcett.  I felt like someone had made a really good selection when they put this man in the ranks as an Executive Director.  Someone who is passionate about his job.

The menu for breakfast was to be Migas with flour tortillas. Migas, if you aren't aware of this Mexican dish, is a combination of things that make for a hardy breakfast that can be made into a burrito or just eaten with a fork and pushed around with a tortilla.  The recipe is as follows and as you can probably see, there are many ways you can alter the ingrediants according to your specific taste.  As for the quantities, you add the various amounts till it looks right.  Someone told me that "Migas" was Spanish for cleaning out the icebox....er a ....make that refrigerator.  So you can see the ingrediants can be just about anything.


Migas

Migas

6 dozen eggs

Diced jalapenos

Diced onions

Diced tomatoes

Diced bell peppers (three colors)

2 lbs Jimmy Dean sausage (1 hot-1 mild)

Garlic powder

Oregano

Corn Chips

Shredded Cheese

Because of the drougth all over Texas Steve and I were a little concerned about a fire getting away from us and causing a grass fire we chose to use an enclosed firebox.  The vessel we cook the Migas in is a 20” disco which is a plow disc with the hole welded up and two horseshoes welded to the sides that serve as handles.  We first cooked the sausage and moved it to the outter edge of the disc and began sautéing the vegetables.  Just a few minutes before the time approached 6:00 am we began cooking the eggs.  Everything came together for serving the meal at the designated time because a tight schedule had to be maintained throughout the day.  The way we keep the flour tortillas hot is by using what we call a poor boy double boiler and it consistsof  an old metal oil drain pan over(we cleaned it as good as we could :) ) the fire with water in it and a horseshoe inside that pan to keep the next pan placed inside the oil pan up off the bottom.  Then the tortillas are placed in the pan and another pan on top to keep in the heat.  Everyone was ready to eat and drink coffee for some warmth.  I remembered late Saturday evening that I forgot to add the cheese to the Migas.  I don’t think anyone missed them! I asked one of the scout leaders if the scouts had already eaten and he said it didn’t matter because they could and would eat anytime.  So as soon as the staff finished eating a number of scouts around close got to finish up the left overs. 

Steve and I sort of had a plan as to what we were going to do for the seven or eight groups of scouts who were going to rotate through our camp every 30 minutes during the day but it wasn’t until they started showing up just after serving the last of the Migas that we had to hump to get REALLY organized. 

This is when Steve’s expertise in teaching outdoor education to this age group came in to play.  He quickly got the group together and began to tell them about the cooking pots (Dutch ovens) and some of the other implements like biscuit cutters made out of soup or juice cans, and trivits made from horseshoes we had around the camp.  I got the Hoe cake batter ready and the Dutch oven lid on the fire and he began cooking the bite sized cakes that was served up with black strap molasses and/or honey. The lid of the Dutch oven makes an excellent griddle for this type of cooking.

Hoe Cakes (aka corn dodgers, Johnny cakes, etc)

1 cup flour

1 cup cornmeal

1 tbs sugar

1 tsp salt

2-3 tbs Crisco

2 cups of water (more or less) 

Cut the Crisco into the other ingredients then add water until the batter is like thick pancake batter.  This is another recipe that you can easily change up by adding things like jalapenos and cheese. They are quite fun to fix and the story that goes along with the cakes is interesting.  Way back when slaves picked cotton for plantation owners they would easily prepare a quick meal in the cotton fields, with the simple ingredients, by building a fire and taking the head of the hoe off of the handle and using it to cook their cakes.  So now you know how they came by their name.  

Being as close to the Christmas Holidays, we suggested to the participants that they go home and make these for their mothers and added the appreciation Moms at this time of year make bring about untold rewards.

Mike Kyle, Mike's Great Dane, Jack Johnson, Steve Woods and Scouts

I was pleased to have met up with another friend from Del Rio, Mike Kyle.  The whole experience brought back wonderful memories of my days as a Cub Scout.  I cherish the two Cub Scout books that I have in my library and when I got home I opened them and.....to my surprise.....there was Mikes's brother, Gary Kyle listed on the page as my Den Chief.  It was with great sorrow I heard of Gary's passing just recently.  RIP Gary Kyle!!!

This is the first of probably two posts on the Boy Scouts of Camp Fawcett.

Adventures of a Latter Day Coosie #6

It is over. We are done.  Stick a fork in us......that is it, we are done in more ways than one.  We are pooped.  We sit down and relax and enjoy a little of what is left of the food.  Man, what a mess.  There are dirty Dutch ovens, pots, pans, plates, knives, and cups everywhere.

This is what it seems like.

 Skip is super efficient about keeping things cleaned up, but as the crunch gets closer he gets busy with other cooking duties and chores everything backs up on us.  No matter, because we don't have to do anything 'till morning.  We'll clean up the mess a little later.  We're going to go and listen to some music inside the big tent and check out some of the vendors. Rest!!!

Skip and I just returned from "inside" where we listened to several excellent entertainers.  I think we almost went to sleep just sitting for a spell.  Just a little tired since we didn't get much sleep last night because of the horses.

Now that the big meal is behind us we can start thinking about the menu for breakfast.  The plan is to have German Puff Cake, which is a variation of a pancake.  My wife, Linda,  found the recipe in one of her cook books after I mentioned to her that I would like to find something different to cook so that the judges didn't get just another country pancake.

 To go with the pancake recipe we will enter the syrup category with a recipe for Hen Butter that Jerry Baird gave me a while back.

To this add 1 cup of Coke and stir...

 The biscuit recipe is out of Grady Spear's "Cowboy in the Kitchen" cookbook.  He calls it a Nut Mash Biscuit.

For the coffee entry we brought New Orleans Blend coffee from Austin, Texas. It has Chicory in the blend. Baird swears by it and I have used it a few times in the past when I can get it. It has a nice and interesting taste. The gravy recipe is from my mother, Libbie, but with a little twist. I decided to add a little sausage. Hope it works. Oh, and on the Hen Butter you can't let it boil too long or it will get real thick which it is supposed to do when making the "butter". We just boiled it a little so it would remain thin like a syrup.Now it is Sunday morning well before daylight, and the horses were at it again with their bad habit of banging with their hooves, only not quite as bad. From the looks of things--no stars in the sky--there may be a little moisture coming our way today. By the time the sun came up it was evident that we needed to prepare the camp for rain. We got an extra fly strung up over the cooking area that should keep the rain out of the cooking utensils. We had to bring all the saddles and stuff we didn't want to get wet in under the wagon sheet. This is going to make it way to cozy in the cooking area. John was up and over at our camp bright and early. Randy and Robin are present to observe the Masters, hee, hee, at work. If they only knew......they could have picked any camp present and learned more....but we offered a lot of fun too.

Skip is taking care of the gravy making and fighting the light rain under the makeshift canvas cover.  He has the sausage done up just right and has added flour to the sausage grease and slowly adding milk until he gits the right consistency.  The sausage was added somewhere in the middle of the flour and milk.  It is gonna be hum, him, good!

John is handling the biscuit duties.  I figure he got all the burned ones out of his system yesterday so we shouldn't have to worry about him and the biscuits.   The problem with this particular entry is we have to keep a watch out for the Light Crust Dough Girl, Sandy Sullivan because she will eat up the dough before it even becomes a biscuit.  I must admit she has good taste 'cause it really is good.  I had just a smidgen you understand.

I am trying my hand at making the German Puff Cake.  I  haven't make them in a big Dutch oven so the final product should be quite interesting.  The mixture turned out real good except we found that if the oven is really hot before you put in the mixture you will not need any coals on the bottm.....just the top.  This is what Robin figured out while they were observing the so called masters.  It fluffed up sort of like a meringue.  The bottom got a little over done in some areas.  The portion we turned in to the judges looked nice and fluffy, even though the fluff dies done quite rapidly after removing form the heat.

The Hen Butter turned out real good.  The ingredients are:  eggs, flour, sugar, and molasses.  I couldn't find the black molasses the recipe calls for so I had to substitute maple based syrup.  I think just--just right--is the way it turned out.

The New Orleans coffee shoud be the Teehumptumdinktum.  I added a little bit of cinnamon to the enrry. Hope they like our "eye opener".

I'm not sure how Silky does the tickets for breakfast.  There aren't many floks lined up to eat breadfast, just a few people milling around.  We have invited everone that comes into the camp to have a sample of the fixins.

The organizing crew and judges have done all their deliberations on the breakfast entries and are ready to give the awards for yesterday and today.

There is still a little light drizzling rain and Silky has summoned everone over to the headquarters tent for the award presentations.  A nice quaint little gathering of cooks, helpers, organizers, vendors, friends, on lookers,and in the distance those dad gum loud Percherons.  Some of the folks are wearing their bright yellow slickers, some with unbrellas, and still others in the tradition of the Old West,

just getting weter than all get out.  Silky introduces a few people instrumental in making the Festival of the West happen, then she gets right in to the results She calls out the winners of the potatoes and that went to Hanging Tree from Bandera, Texas.  Yeah Texas!! Second was Curley Cue from Las Vegas, Nevada. Third place went to us the Calk-Clark Wagon from El Paso, Texasl  Yeah us!! Well, at least we did better than our last outing. This time we got a "smell".  Along with the checks the winners were presented with a beautiful rosette style ribbon commorating the place in the competition and the event itself.  Listed below are all of the results.

Best Potatoes
1.  Hanging Tree, Bandera, Texas
2.  Curley Cue Camp, Las Vegas, Nevada
3.  Calk-Clark Wagon

Best Meat
1.  Curley Cue Camp
2.  Biscuit Flats, Chandler, Arizona
3.  Hanging Tree

Best Bread
1.  Curley Cue Camp
2.  Biscuit Flats
3.  Hanging Tree

Best Beans
1.  Curley Cue Camp
2.  Biscuit Flats
3.  Hanging Tree

Best Dessert
1.  Calk-Clark Wagon
2.  Manflo Wagon, Nuevo, California
3.  J. Quick Wagon, Santa Ana, California

OVERALL LUNCH WINNER- CURLE CUE CAMP

AUTHENTIC WAGON
1.  Curley Cue
2.  Calk-Clark
3.  J. Quick Wagon

Fartherst Traveled-Hanging Tree

CHARLIE GOODNIGHT/POT WRASSLER BUCKLE- CALK-CLARK WAGON

Best Coffee
1.  Curley Cue
2.  Cowgirls Forever, Desert Hills, Arizzona

Best Biscuits
1.  Curley Cue Camp
2.  Cowgirls Forever

Best Gravy
1.  Calk-Clark
2.  Curley Cue

Best Flapjacks
1.  Calk-Clark
2.  Manflo

Best Syrup
1.  Hanging Tree
2.  Calk-Clark

OVERALL BREAKFAST WINNER-CALK-CLARK WAGON

After we recieved the 3rd place award for the potatoes there was a bit of a let down each time they called winners of another category.  You always want to hear them call your camp to the front to recieve an award. They didn't call us for the next trhee categories and here we were thinking ....again...."We cooked a better entry than to not even get a 3rd plac."  After a dry spell you think "just what the heck is wrong with our food?"  Then along comes a renewal of your faith in your ability as a cook when you hear your name called. for a first place in dessert which we thought was our best enry.    It takes a while in this competition to learn that there are no bad cooks and many, many of them are exceptional.  So, to us, when we win something it really is special.

Three Cooks

The authenticity of the wagon and camp was the next category to be recognized.  Curley Cue was recoznized, and rightfully so because their wagon and accoutrements were tremendous.  Then another surprise, they called us as the second place wagon..  That made me really proud.  I guess a small, even teensy bit of vanity or ego set in that someone recognized the the Calk-Clark Wagon was pretty good after all and the work that went into restoring it finally paid off.

The overall winner for lunch was announded and Curley Cue took home the prize.  Breakfast winners, starting with the coffee was next in the award line up.  Now here I am thinking that the new Orleans blend was going to do the trick and the cinnamobn would just put it over the top.  Nope!  Wrong again.  Curley Cue spanked up again.  I did hear later that the judges were over heard talking about our entry saying it was flavored and that "they didn't have laavored coffee on the trail."  Guess the cinnamon and Chickry which were both available during the trail drives was a little too much for these judges.

Two movie stars.

I was getting disappointed 'long about this time and couldn't hear or mabbe just didn't want to hear when they called the winners of the next two catagories.  Skip said "get up there"  they are calling our name.   That happened for the gravy and flapjacks and we pulled out a second on the syrup.  We had won the Overall Breadfast and the next award was the coveted Charlie Goodnight belt buckle.  I thought for sure this award was going to be presented to John and Sandy Sullivan for all their efforts as the host wagon for the festival. Nope, wrong again!  They called me.........very humbling.  This was and is a very special award.  They awarded me the buckle which I immediately thought was a problem because this is a TEAM sport or event and there isn't just one person this should be awarded to.....so I asked and recieved permission from Silky to have all the members of the crew a Charlie Goodnight buckle made.  The buckles were ordered as soon as I returned to El Paso.  Now we can all be proud of winning the Festival of the West Charlie Goodnight buckle.

A Model.

The awards are over, the rain has stopped and the sky is bgeginning to clear.  We now have several hours facing us before the loading is complete.  Ordinarily we would have been slowly taking things down and loading them onto the trailer since yesterday, but the rain qnd preparing breakfast put the quietus on loading early.

Thanks to John Sullivan, we had a choice spot for our campsite duiring the evernt, however, the downside was our dcamp was set up towards the front of the campsite area and the other participants were able to get their rigs in first to load their gear and wagons.  There was only enough room for one or two rigs at a time to load and just one way in and one way out.  Now we have to wait 'till all of the other wagons are loaded and gone before we will be able to laod.  We have pretty well buttoned up all the small stuff like taking down the teepee, flys, putting all the "iron" together, and placing the saddles where they can be loaded easily.  Seems like we have a million pounds of gear and just a little earlier we were so proud to display it all at our campsite.  In fact just about every other thought was why in the blankety blank blank did we need all this blankety blank blank stuff?  The only consolation at this point is we did receive a 2nd place for camp authenticity.

Another movie actor.

Now we have to wait our turn to get the goose neck trailer in where we can load.  We are all really tired and anxious to get on the road.  Earlier I was a little concerned if we were ging to be able to get out of the camp because of all the mud.  But luckily there was enought sun to substantially dry out the ground so that getting stuck was not a problem.  Sany Sullivan has taken their camper and headed back to Ft.Thomas.  John has stayed to help us load.  Thank goodness!  As soon as the loading is complete we will head out as well.

We are on the road now enjoying a beautiful drive.  For at least a little way we will get to enjoy the view before it gets dark.  As we go through the mounrtains we see many trees broken down from what appears to have been a bad snow storm.  We were getting really tired so we stopped at a Sonic Drive Inn and had a humongous burger and fries with a large soda water.  It was really getting cool,  no correct that, it was getting down right cold and we had to eat in the pickup....but the hamburger and fries were absolutely delicious.

Skip and I are going to spend the night with John and Sandy and tomorrow we are going to hitch up one of the wagons and drive it to town.  This will be a special treat for both of us since nither one of us had ever dirven a team.  I am also looking rorward to seeing John's blacksmith shop where he does all his wagon building.  Sandy and their friend Rusty built the shop for John a couple years ago.  Sandy does a lot of building down in Mexico and other oplaces for the Houses for Humanity program, so her skill level in building is quite refined.

I forget how long the trip to John's place took us, but we were ready to relax for a while when we got there---that's forsure.  John's brother and sister-in-law were there for a short visit.  We set up for a while talking about the events of the last few days and exchanging ideas and generally shootinbg the bull till it occured to us that we were dead tired ....and we all turned in for the night.  Aaahhhhh, a real bed.

Getting the team harnessed

You there pilgrim, let's get movin.

Hi Yo Silver....this way.....

John Sullivan

John's shop

Thank you for following us on this outing.  We had a great time. Met lots of fine people and hopefully you were able to take something away from this dialog and these pictures.  Hope to see you on down the trail....and stay tuned to the next blog.....possibly a get together with some Boy Scouts in 2013.

Adventures of a Latter Day Coosie #5

We bought some sausage, tortillas and jalapenos for breakfast.  We'll get them going on the grill and have a bite before everything gets too wild.  Coffee is sure good.  We brought some New Orleans Blend coffee, with Chicory, from Austin.  Has a really nice flavor and a number of folks appreciated the subtle difference in taste.

I need to call Steve here in a bit and let him know we are thinking about him and his Dad.

We did get the potatoes peeled last night so that little chore is out of the way.  Now to prepare the yeast for the bread and let it work a while before mixing up the flour.  We can get the Peach Cobbler prepared and out of the way.  Skip and I are preparing the crust using the method called Lattice

It really looks "purdy".  Theory is:  The Peaches will be cooked in a pot while the crust is cooking in a Dutch oven, then when the peaches are done we will put them in another Dutch oven and slide the latticed crust over onto the peaches.  The theory is sound but who knows what will happen.  /We are always trying something different to make our entries better.  This is the first time we have tried weaving the dough for the top of the cobbler.  We'll see how it turns out....as you can see, not so well, but we only turn in the center 4 inches.

John is working on the fried potato recipe, using peppers and onions and grinding up some of the meat that gave us. It will look good with the different colored bell peppers and jalapenos.  Bam!! Up it goes a notch.  In addition to the "fried potatoes", we are going to do some mashed potatoes just in case we run out of fried potatoes.  We should have enough but we think we may be a little shy because the frying pan wasn't quite large enough.

Sure are lots of folks milling around the camp.  Many have stopped in for a cup of coffee.  We met a real nice couple form California, Randy and Robin Hoskins, who are about to venture into the chuck wagon cooking.  It was enjoyable for me to spend a little time talking to them about some of the ins and outs of the wagon and cooking utensils.  I think they already have a good grip on the cooking and right now are excited about gathering up all

the things necessary for their wagon.
They know Brian Jones from the Manflo Wagon and are going to get a little experience working with them on one of their outings in the near future  I invited them to join us in Ruidoso as part of our crew.  Hope they do!

Manflo!!!

Let's take stock:  cobbler is started, bread is underway, beans are cooking, meat is marinating, and potatoes are in the skillet.  Next is to iron out the small details like the crust for the cobbler, batter the chicken fried steaks, seasoning for the beans, and mix the flour for the rolls.   The plan is to have everything done by our assigned time slot.

We are still lucky on the weather.  The wind is blowing a bit, but nothing to give us major problems.  We have plenty of wind breaks and side curtains if we need them.  So far we have experienced no moisture.  I guess it is real good thing because the ground around the premises is clay  If it were to rain, I think we would be marooned here in a bog.  Someone said there was a huge snow storm last week in the mountains east of here.  We'll keep our fingers crossed.

Smoke is coming from behind our wind screens.

It becomes a little difficult at times being hospitable to everyone who wanders by the camp when there are so many details to keep up with, but we really try to be nice in spite of the pressure.  Skip has really been good with reminders for me to keep calm.  As the time approaches for turning in the food items I usually get stressed out.  However, for some reason, the atmosphere here lends itself to being naturally calmer and laid back.  We have a good crew and everyone knows what has to happen for everything to come together.

Skip Clark, John (Sully)Sullivan, and me.

That equates to: everything will get done.  What you have to watch out for is the unexpected.  A dropped pan, dead yeast, burned bread, rain, wind, snow, and I guess a multitude of other things that we haven't even mentioned or experienced.  So far Murphy evidently was busy somewhere else this weekend.   Maybe he is adding to his laws.

I always put a little 5x7 card up on the chuckbox to remind me during the course of the competition to check on the various items.  Al the card has written on it is:  1.Meat 2. Bread  3. Beans 4. Potatoes 5. Dessert.  Its purpose is a reminder to check the progress on each one.  It seems to work.  As an example , when you get the bread in the oven and cooking, it is real easy to get busy and forget the turn the lid or forget to check on them.  As in how Sully got busy talking yesterday and burned not one, but TWO pans of biscuits.  It really works.  The other helpful think is the crew is constantly verbally giving reminders such as "check the bread" or "stir the beans" or "check the dessert".  The system seems to work!

The chicken fried steak cooking is fairly laborious.  You can't get too far ahead on breading the meat because the meat will stick together.  We have found that adding the spices to the flour and to the meat gives the best effect.  Both have different requirements, for instance we want the crust to have a little bite and we want the meat flavor to come out as a judge gets past the crust.  We also want the crust to be crusty and not soft, therefore we use some corn starch in the flour for the batter.  We change up the batter for dipping quite often, sometime.s

Speaking of cards, I have all my recipes on cards and use them when we are cooking.  The quantities are easy to get mixed up and, anyway, I don't cook frequently enough to remember quantities from one time to the next.  The recipes are some I have developed myself, and others are ones from Jerry Baird, Jerry Slaton, Carl Hawkins, Glenn Benson, Grady Spears, Kent Rollins, James Stewart, Linda Calk and some form my mother Libbie Calk.  Referring to recipes, for me,  is a must.  It is too easy to forget one little ingredient.

The time slot we drew was 12:00 noon. We are ready to turn in the entries.  It is still about 20 minutes till our time and the Biscuit Flats wagon, which is next to us.  We are going to select our entries carefully and certainly hand in the best we have.  We selected two real nice pieces of steak that came out of the hot oil in the first batch.  The first batch usually is best because as time goes on the oil gets becomes burned and produces less than satisfactory steaks...especially at the end of 50-60 steaks.  The potatoes are in pretty good shape and look to be

just about right.  The beans are cooked to pieces.  The taste is good, but they are way over cooked.  The judges will definitely not like them The  bread is really good but just a little bit overdone on the bottom....but certainly not burned.  They are a good entry.  The Peach cobbler looks sensational the way we latticed the crust for the top.  The cobbler itself didn't have any cinnamon and i liked it because it had the nice red color of a Cling Free Peach even though the peaches were just from an air tight.
This is a really good entry.

I think this would be a good place to tell you about trust and

dependability.  There was a young lady in the camp on Friday telling us about how she had cooked for hunting camps all over the country.  She specifically told us of a hunting camp she had cooked for in /Canada.  He went on and on about how she didn't take any #%&*@ from any of the hunters.  She was on this particular job for two or three months so her story went.  Anyway she elaborated about how she cooked the way she wanted to cook and not necessarily the way they expected her to cook, but that the important thing was to hae the food prepared on time and in didn't  matter what the

mweather was like.  We were taken in by her cooking experiences and she asked really nicely if she could come out tomorrow and help us with the meal.  We thought that would be a great idea.  I even gave her one of my TEXAS cooking aprons.  as a token to bind this "contract".  She even managed to talk us out of one of the Festival Of The West aprons as well.  Well, if you haven't guessed it yet.  she shops up about 12 noon and wants to know if she can help serve.  I didn't tell her exactly what I thought....let's just say the answer was no.

Pic from gradyslinecamp.com

 After all she promised to help and then didn't even show up...to me that was a bond with no extenuating circumstances.  From her attitude, she thought nothing of the commitment she made to us.  I'm sorry for carrying on about this,  but damn, she got off with two of my good aprons.

We have some hungry folks waiting to get served so we have set the ovens on the Serape covered serving tables and assembled the serving line.  Ring the dinner bell and holler "Come and Get it 'fore We Throw

it Out"!!!

A little time has passed and the line has gone down and we are just standing around waiting on folks to show up.  We can still serve more people 'cause we still have plenty of food.  We sign al to Silky that we can handle six more and she immediately sends six more people to us who are patiently waiting in line to get a meal ticket.  This method of feeding the public went on until we were out of food.  I think we must have served around 58 people, not counting ourselves.  We would cut a steak into little pieces and graze on it while waiting for people to show up with their tickets.

The people at the right are some of the folks whose recipes or teachings I have used over the years while cooking.  There are others that I don't have pictures for.  The "Adventures..." section looks as thought it will come to a close AFTER next weeks posting as I am about to run out of dialog on the competition.  Stay tuned for #6 coming up next week.

Adventures of a Latter Day Coosie # 4

Well, I strayed away form the subject again but I smelled something burning and noticed Sully dumping the contents of a pan into the trash.  yep, you guessed it...he burned his biscuits.  His wagon, Poverty Flats, is the host wagon and is camped next to us.  I didn't say much to him cause he was really busy cooking for the celebrities.  It wasn't until 45 minutes later he was repeating the same maneuver as before;  dumping a Dutch oven full of burnt biscuits into the trash.  He was sure hoping no one saw him dumping the New Orleans
 "blackened bread" , but I caught him both times.  Yes twice, back to back, TWO batches of hockey pucks...I mean biscuits in the trash.

John, just prior to burning the biscuits

Sort of in defense of the rest of the meal, they eventually did serve biscuits (maybe frozen from Sam's) along with gravy, and beans.  Sure took the edge off the hunger pangs we were having.  The Sullivan's helper, Randy "Hawk" Hawkins from Pima, Arizona seemed to be cooking all the time trying to keep the dignitaries happy.  During the course of the event they served stuffed quail, stuffed duck, and a couple of desserts and a whole slew of BS.

Randy Hawkins and Pepper's crew getting ready for cameras

John Sullivan preparing some gourmet food for the entertainers

The wagon judges have now come and gone and hopefully we put on a good show for them.  The camp looked really good if I do say so myself and we received many compliments on the setup and on Skip roasting the green coffee beans.  I think the unusual display of the wagon tongue, being partially finished with some rivets and a few final touches with the draw knife while the judges were doing their critique, maybe had some impact on their judging.

Now we can take a little breather.  Whew, nothing more to do 'till 4:30 in the morning.  We are going to take in some of the vendors.  These folks have really got it going here.Many various types of leather goods, stuff  for re-enactors, clothing, knives, guns, swords, hats, cooking utensils, music of all kinds, and poetry.

Re-enacting couple

She was too pretty to miss having a picture made with her

 We got to sit down and listen to some exceptionally high quality entertainers.  We saw several entertainers on stage and looked at many interesting things the vendors had for sale.  Later that evening many of the entertainers were out at the central campsite which was just a few yards from our wagon.  They had a blast taking turns picking and singing.

Opps!  we have a hiccup in the schedule.  Silky has just about passed out from dehydration.  She has been hustling around getting everything an organizer has to do and hasn't taken car of her own needs.  We got her water and wet towels to cool her off.  Doc Lawrence (one of the wagon participants) came over and offered his assistance.  He had all the right things to say and had Silky put her hands in ice and made her lie down on the ground to improve circulation.  She is going to be alright.  Right now she has gone to her motor home for a rest.

It is a real good thing Silky is disabled right now because the Gila Indian Reservation Health Inspector has come to the camp.  Silky told everyone in a letter prior to our arriving that she wasn't going to have us take the test for the food handler's license.  She would probably be on a pretty good warpath herself righ now.  I think everyone really doesn't mind taking the test.  The inspector gave her spiel and then out came the tests.  Skip and I went to the table and picked up our test and promptly failed it.  Then, we found out they have the study brochure for us which just happens to have all the answers.  I think Skip aced it and I missed a couple.  I wonder what they would have done if we didn't pass the little food skills test?  Hummmm?  Well, no matter.  It is all behind us and Silky didn't even have to deal with the inspector.

I was wrong earlier when I said there was nothing to do until early morning.  There are two things that need to happen before the morning cooking starts.  One, go to the store and pick up a few special ingredients and some things we will need to complete the assigned menu.  I will also pick up a little something for breakfast that we can prepare quickly.  Two, tenderize the meat for chick fried steaks.  That should be real interesting since the central campfire is real close by.  Maybe we can do it in time with the music. Ha. ha!!!

Entertainers were at the bonfire in the eventing

The clock went off like a fire alarm,  very loud!!  Actually it didn't wake up up because the maintenance folks came by to pump the porta potties at 3:45 am.  They are located only about 50 feet from our teepee.  And before the pumps started, the big draft horses from Bison Homes kicked and pawed their stalls all night long.

 keeping everyone awake.  They aren't to blame, but there is certainly and amount of blame that could be placed on their trainer for not correcting that bad habit.

Now it is up and attum.  Stoke the fire.  Get the coffee on.  Move everything out from underneath the fly.  We had to put it "inside" because there was an expectation of rain and/or dew for early morning.  Wrong!  Moving everything under the wagon fly was better than getting up with everything wet.  We soaked the beans overnight which was probably a bad idea since it usually doesn't take that long to cook beans.  We're just not sure how things cook here in Arizona.  We are just getting going real good and now this will be continued .........................

Dave McDowell , a fellow competitor from Arizona