Old Lincoln Days continued......

Continued....

During Lincoln Days in Lincoln, New Mexico, we thought we would educate some folks to what a hoe cake was.....which ......is......just as the name implies.....a cake made on a hoe, not by one....hehehe.   As the story goes during Steve's oration to this fact, during the time when there were slaves, hoeing the weeds out of the cotton fields, they would take a break and remove the handle and build a small fire and mix up cornmeal and water to make a mush, then cook the dollop of cornmeal dough on the hoe head......hence...........Hoe Cakes.  They have been called many things over time: hoe cakes, Johnny cakes(as in Johnny Reb during the Civil War), mush, hush puppies, and corn dodgers and I'm sure many more regional names.

 The recipe we used was:
1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2-3 Tbs oil or crisco
1-2 cups water
*  We added some cheese and jalapenos to
make it a little more "our" hoe cakes.

We served the hoe cakes to whomever came by the camp.  Along side the cakes were an abundance of hot dogs that were compliments of El Paso Honda ( there were left over buns and wieners from a deal I did with them at the dealership in El Paso.)  In fact the General Manager of El Paso Honda, Gerald Miller and friend along with Bubba Brown, rode their motorcycles up to see us. It is so much fun giving food away, and people just don't understand that we don't charge for stuff like this. (my next door neighbor always accused me of not being a good businessman.....oh well).

We had a good time visiting with Gary and Walt talking about chuck wagon accouterments and swapping methods of this and that.    Mostly lies!

Here is Gary reciting one of his many lies. 

Friday was a very hot day and every so often the clouds would roll in and threaten rain....but it never came.  There was a really bad cloud on Thursday night with a lot of thunder and lightning but the little valley where Lincoln is located managed to send the clouds to the mountains to the east of us.....and nothing in the way of moisture.  As for the weather, Saturday proved to be more of the same, with clouds, a lot of humidity and no rain.........just the way we liked it................NOT! It was hot for a couple of ole fat boys.

The migas for breakfast were scheduled for the monument staff at 7:30 am, and we had a lot of fun visiting with all the folks who showed up, among them Quentin Waterhouse, several deputy sheriffs, Gary, Bill, Ira, Gwendolyn and others from the staff and a federal judge, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (who were certainly dressed the part and were part of the troupe doing some of the gun fights down the street), Gary Hiel, Walt Lowe (chuck wagon cooks),Walt's brother-in-law Rory McMinn, Jerry Baird and and old high school buddy, Hopper, Katy, and many others whose name we didn't get.

You never know who will show up to one of these things!

Fun was had by all....and I might add that a venue like this lends itself to allowing time for getting to know folks.  I was especially happy to get to visit in length with the boys from Roswell.  Have known them for quite a spell , but never did really get to KNOW them.  They are good hands, and I will look forward to meeting up with them again in the future. The thing about migas is that they will keep for quite a while if you will just keep them near a fire.  I usually use an old metal oil pan with a pan liner in it as a double boiler.  It keeps things like migas and chile con queso nice and hot as long as you don't let all the water evaporate.  This time I just cooked them in an old plow disc and kept the heat down real low, and they "kept over" for a good while till they were gone.

 Calk's Migas Recipe:
*  onions
*  bell peppers, three different colors
*  garlic
*  jalapenos
*  bacon
*  cheese
*  eggs
*  tostadas

Start off by frying up the bacon until crisp then move the bacon to the side and using the bacon grease add the onions and garlic, cooking them for a while then adding the bell peppers, jalapenos. When you have that mixture to your liking add the tomatoes and eggs.  As soon as you have the eggs stirred in, add crumbled up tostadas and cheese of your choice. When the eggs have just about set and the cheese melted add some more tostadas so you will have some that are soft and some that are crunchy.  Salt to taste and serve with biscuits and gravy or a hot tortilla. Now the amounts are chuck wagon amounts so you sort of add the ingredients till they are about right and never second guess yourself because above all I don't think you can mess up a pan of migas.

As the day wears on and the hot weather just gets hotter--I think Steve and I consumed over two cases of water in  the two days. We looked around and Gary and Walt had just stepped up to the plate and began what looked like needed to be done and they threw in and cooked up some more sausage and we had smoked oysters, and fresh Gulf Coast Shrimp cocktails followed by fajitas, Elk T-bones, and potato salad.  We certainly don't go hungry at these events.

One of the stories going around that was related to Steve was that John Tunstall, back in the day, realized that Lincoln would be a well known historic, and he had many of the things that were on the shelves in his store back in the !800's placed into storage and when "the Tunstall Store" was turned into a museum they would have the proper items to display.  The things you see in these pictures are a result of Tunstall's foresight.  So the story goes!
One of the days we and the Roswell boys  went to the historic Wortley Hotel for lunch.  It was nice to have someone else wait on us for a change.  I think we drank them out of ice tea while we were there.  The BBQ sandwiches really hit the spot.
The activity for Friday and Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon was for the Billy the Kid Pageant.  If you haven't seen it, put it on your schedule for next year.  Well worth seeing the play about the local hero.  The setting is large enough that the pageant enlists the use of  real horses, wagons, and buggies along with a lot of shootouts.  The characters used in the pageant are a much sought after acting role and some are handed down within local families.

Pic from BTK website

 "Many of the players are descendants of the original pageant participants. The players still live the Western life they portray in the pageant. These people have gladly donated their time, energy and possessions. They are the real heroes of this folk play - one of the very few remaining in the United States made up entirely of local players without any professional help." (quote from Billy The Kid Pageant homepage) 

Sunday is pretty much reserved for the parade at 11:00 am.  Rory McMinn from Lincoln with his '39 Chevrolet and Walt Lowe from Roswell with his '41Chevy truck (that will soon to be a chuck wagon) and my '27, represented three antique vehicles that were in the parade.  We took it upon ourselves to do a pre-parade parade and drove up and down the street of Lincoln to get folks ready for the parade.  We wanted to make sure everyone knew there was going to be a parade. Hehehe! I think there were somewhere around 75 entries, mostly individual horse and rider entries but several antique vehicles, one a 1914 Oldsmobile as well as the Lincoln County Fire Department and our friends the County Sheriff deputies.

Matt chewing on a hoe cake.  His horse had one too.

Exceptionally cool threesome!

After the parade we tore down the camp, Roswell boys headed home, and we headed to Ruidoso for a hot shower and clean sheets.  Steve and I  reminisced  about the goings on of the week end and both agreed that this venue is a whole lot more fun than competition cooking.

Cookie talking recipes with deputy Phillip (alias Tortilla Man)

Walt, Gary, Wayne, and Steve

See you on down the road!

Old Lincoln Days in Lincoln, New Mexico

Continued.........

Hopper and Katy Shannon from Hatch, New Mexico had arrived and began setting up their blacksmith camp.  Hopper is a historic blacksmith who researches old smithing methods and also seeks out old photographs showing old implements and markings that he replicates. I had asked him about a month ago to make me a meat fork about 18" long.

  Fantastic!  His work is unequaled.  This is the fork he made me with a ram skull added at my request.  Katy is fantastic and they make a great team selling all of the various things he makes to offer to the public.  They have been to many mountain men rendezvous camps where all the people who attend eat, sleep, dress, etc in the period of 1845-1860.  Re-enactors if you will.  They are special friends!

Next morning (Friday),  as we were relaxing, having a cup of coffee, across the street a buck, doe and two fawns were having their morning chomp of dew covered grass.  And then we were treated with the daily (we found out later) jackass bray...same time every morning that we were there...regular as clock work.  There was also a morning dove, obviously very young, because he/she had not learned the normal repertoire learned by doves during their early schooling.

Steve had brought some homemade sausage that we cooked up and had on a tortilla.  Yum, yum!  We had been looking forward to the early morning sounds and just sitting and having a cup of coffee before the town awakened.  It was as nice as we remembered it two years ago.  

Quentin Waterhouse, Tim, Lucy, Hopper discussing the price of wheat in China

The festivities around town were just getting going on Friday with everyone setting up their stuff for the public, although there were a number of people milling around such as the young couple, Tim & Lucy who live in Southwest London who were camping nearby.  We asked them to join us for breakfast on Saturday.

Steve and I spent the early morning driving the truck around to the various historic sites and took pictures in front of the buildings before anyone was really stirring.  Quite an odd feeling......early in the morning in Lincoln.....there seems to be spirits of the days gone by that still hang around.  Stories abound about what happened here during the Lincoln County Wars.  There too are stories about what wasn't written that run freely from Lincoln residents if you catch them at the right time.

...at the Lincoln County Jail

...at the Wortley Hotel

...at the Tunstall Store

After getting back to the camp and opening up the "kitchen" I decided it was time to make up a batch of camp made Kahlua.  I even rounded up some antique bottles in which to save the "coffee sweetener". I got the recipe from Rex Wailes from Colorado when we were out at an Arizona gathering and then modified it to fit our surroundings.

Steve pouring up the Kahlua

...the batch of Kahlua cooling

 

KAHLUA RECIPE:

6 cups of campfire coffee

1lb. light brown sugar

3 1/2 TBS vanilla extract

1/2 liter of Vodka (2.1 cups)

Whilst coffee is hot, mix in

brown sugar and let cool.

Mix in vanilla and vodka and

serve as a Black Russian or as

a sweetener for your coffee.

Ahhhhh, the sweetener is ready for the coffee

Old Lincoln Days continued

Old Lincoln Days in Lincoln, New Mexico

The Old Lincoln Days festivities center around the Lincoln County War and the goings on in the county  which pretty much centered around what Billy the Kid, alias William F. Bonney did and the famous escape from the local jail.  From the 1880's until now, nothing has changed and the controversy continues.  Did Pat Garret really kill Billy The Kid in Fort Sumner that night?  This was the question that was posed and discussed at great length around the campfire in Lincoln on the weekend of August 3-4, 2013. I believe the consensus was that Garret did kill someone that night.  He shot the person in the face and the body was buried shortly after, within an hour or two.  Positive identification was not possible.  Even much later there was nobody to do a DNA test because of floods in 1889 and 1904 washing away critical markers.  Brushy Bill Roberts who claimed to be the real Billy the Kid lived out his life in Hico, Texas and died there in 1950 wasn't even given a second thought by the campfire members.   What happened to the Kid?  No one really submitted an answer to that question, only questions like what happened to the girlfriend and the baby?  Did the Kid really go to England and die at a ripe old age?  There is a marker in a cemetery that says he is buried in England......Did Tunstall somehow arrange for this to happen prior to  getting killed himself?  Who knows?  Was Pat Garrett "in" on the cover up?  The campfire didn't reveal any great conclusions other than Pat Garret did not kill Billy the Kid that night.

My friend Steve Woods from Denton, Texas came back to Lincoln again this year to participate in the festivities surrounding the Lincoln County War.  We had participated two years ago and were unable to make it last year because I had a commitment in merry old England.  My wife, Linda, and I attended the 2012 Olympics. 

This year's festivities have taken on a little different "look" as our friend, Bennie Long, at the Lincoln Monument site had moved on to another position.  Managing the Monument now is Gary Cozzens.  Steve and I found all the folks at the historic monument: Ira, Bill and several others including Larry Pope from Fort Stanton really pleasant and fun to be around.    They all did their absolute best in making us feel welcome.  I had contacted Gary a week or so prior to the event and let him know that Steve and I would be cooking a meal for them and they just needed to let us know which one they wanted.  They chose breakfast.

Gary Cozzens, Manager New Mexico State Historic Site

I got my 1927 Model T chuck wagon loaded on my goose neck trailer in El Paso, Texas and headed up the mountain to Ruidoso, New Mexico.  I had a lunch date with an ole friend Dulley Gwinn at the Ranchers Grill in Ruidoso on Thursday.  Just after arriving the sky opened up and began to dump a bunch of rain, a sight I had not seen in quite some time.  I suspect it rained a couple of inches in about two hours.  Had a nice prime rib sandwich and visit and then proceeded to Lincoln a distance of only 37miles.  I was able to get on site, beside the monument office and get my teepee set up and the fly for our cooking area set up before Steve arrived at around 4 or 5 pm after about a 9-10 hour drive.  We completed our teepees and basic necessities for the next morning.  We had the stove set up with the coffee pot on the ready so we could have our cup  of

Joe the first thing upon arising in beautiful Lincoln. 

Then we took leave from Lincoln and backtracked down the road to Tinnie's, NM to the Silver Dollar Restaurant.  We were waited on by a very capable staff. In fact we met the chef outside before going in, and he recommended the Beef Stroganoff.   Sage Leeyer was our server, and we found she was the same horseback lady that I had taken pictures of at Fort Stanton a couple of weeks earlier.  We had a great time with her telling and receiving stories.  We did decide on the Beef Stroganoff and an excellent choice it turned out to be.  Since they have hand cut-fresh french fries--I had to have some of them as well.  We visited with many of the wait staff and the chefs in the back.  There are works of art on display in the dining areas, one of which was the beautiful actress of the 1880's, Lily Langtry and another, a 17th century clock and yet another which was a mirror frame dating back to the 18th century.

 

Great stuff!  Quite a nice dining experience.  If you have never been to this particular place you are in for a treat.

Then it was back to Lincoln and our awaiting teepee quarters.  We were situated just a little ways down from the Tunstall Store and across from the Dolan House.  Looking up we were surrounded by tree covered mountains with the little valley opening up to the southwest....the direction we longingly looked for the hopeful rains that never came. 

 The next post will get into what was actually going on in the camp just off the main street in Lincoln, New Mexico.