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

Adventures of a Latter Day Coosie continued #3

Adventures of a.....continued

Skip Clark, John Sullivan and Wayne Calk

When we got back from Austin, Skip decided to leave nearly all his trappings on the trailer so he won't have many more additional things to load when Steve gets here. I have put together a heap of things that will go in Steve's pickup.  Right now I am heading off to the kitchen for a little practice session.  I'm going to try the recipe for the peach cobbler to see if it all goes together according to plan and also try the hen butter to see if it will be good enough for the syrup entry for the breakfast competition.  We may not use either one, but we will know what we are doing if we do decide to use them.  Steve is going to craft his famous breakfast burritos for the dessert competition.  It will be something like the judges have never tasted.  We may find out that it doesn't exactly fit the category for dessert.  Things do happen unexpectedly...like the time a couple of years ago when the yeast for the bread died and we had to do Pan de Campo at the last minute.  If that happens, we will have the cobbler recipe to use as Plan B.

Well, the unexpected has happened.  Steve just called from Monahans, Texas which is about 5 1/2 hours from his home in Denton, Texas and he said he guessed it had finally sunk in that his Dad was not going to be around much longer and he couldn't continue in our direction any further and he was heading back home.  I told him he was being awfully strong to attempt the trip in the first place.  I said go home and be with your Dad.  That's more important than anything else in the world right now.  We will miss his help and BS that he brings to such outings. Prayers for he and family.

We arrived at the Festival of the West around 3:30 pm and worked 'till about 9 pm setting up camp.  We got the wagon unloaded, fire pits dug, the wind screens arranged, the teepee staked out, and the pickup and trailer spotted about a quarter of a mile away from the camp.  The camp must be ready for judging by 9 am. There is still a good three hours of work to do before we will be ready.  In the morning we will set up the saddles, bed rolls, harness, buffalo robe, wagon tongue, Arbuckle's Coffee box/poker table, guns, knives, horseshoeing tools, and a few other little things.  I talked to Silky and she said we could be last in the judging line. That will give us a little more time.  I think we will have to consider coming on Wednesday next year so we will have more time.

I am looking up at the moon remembering what folks use to say about a ring around the moon. "When you see a ring around the moon, there will be moisture within three days."  I haven't kept a close tab on how many times that has proved correct, but I even remember my Grandfather, who was a farmer, saying the same thing.  I sure hope the prognostication is a little off so we can as least get loaded up on Sunday before it start to rain.

The voice of the Encore Western Channel, Bob Barwick, was in our camp a couple of times and was quite personable.  He said he remembered my green wagon from the piece he did on the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium in Ruidoso, New Mexico for the Food Network.  We invited him to come back by and eat with us. What a distinctive low voice he has!

Here it is 9 am and we are ready.  Just stand around and look pretty and wait.   When the judges get here, Skip is going to be roasting coffee beans in a skillet and I will be working on the wagon tongue.  I had hoped to get a couple of Willow poles from Sully to put up our teepee so we wouldn't have to use the metal ones we have.  His supplier didn't get a chance to cut us a couple of 14 footers.  I got the wagon shined up with some Thompson's Water Seal.  Not sure if that is best for the wood since I hear tell the Linseed Oil will make your wagon turn black over time.  I thought I would try it since Buster (a wagon cook from Sanderson, Texas) told me that is what he used on his wagon,  I am a little suspicious that the waterseal may have some oil in it as well.  I have been using paint thinner and linseed oil mixed 3/4 to 1/4.  We'll see how it goes.  Jerry Baird tells me of a product called penathane that is suppose to be the teehumptumdinktum for preserving the wood.  That word is one Festus Hagen uses on the Gunsmoke TV series.

Speaking of Jerry Baird and linseed oil, Baird tells about a time when he was testifying before the Texas Senate Sub Committee on naming of the Chuck Wagon as the Official Vehicle of Texas (SCR8).  The story was after a long while of questions and answers when one senator said that he had a wagon on his ranch and wanted to know what would be the best way to preserve his wagon.  Jerry told him "I'll tell you one thing, you sure as heck don't want to put linseed oil it 'cause it will turn your wagon black."  Baird said the senator smiled and was satisfied that he knew what he was talking about.  Anyway the other side of the story was the Chuck Wagon was designated as the Official Vehicle of Texas in May of 2005.  Now, we have something just as important as the Blue Bonnet for the official flower, and the Mocking Bird as the state bird. Chuck Wagon:  Official Vehicle of Texas.  Pretty cool huh?

Recognition from the Secretary of the State of Texas
( This was prior to receiving the Official notice from Governor Rick Perry. 

Representatives from the American Chuck Wagon Association

Adventures of a Latter Day Coosie #2

Continued from last blog..............

My John Deere Triumph wagon is almost finished.  The one thing I have not finished is the wagon tongue. The old one was rotten when I got the wagon from Wayne Snider a year and a half ago.  I have the new wagon tongue almost completed, with the exception of a few small details.  My plan is to set up the camp, displaying the tongue as if it finally became necessary to build a new tongue while on the trail.

 With this in mind, I will get to use my old tools and display them in a functional setting.  I will have all the old parts lying around with wood shavings etc., which will hopefully look like that work has actually been done at the campsite.  That is the plan anyway.  Hope it works out that way.  I have never asked a wagon judge if this type of actual "work" adds to the judging of the wagon or at least maybe some points toward --the camp. Either way, it can't hurt, my opinion on the subject is that anything that will make your camp and wagon look the least bit different from other wagons, you are a bit ahead even if it is just in the subconscious mind of the judges.

Well, back to the preparation for attending the Festival of the West.  We have already committed to attend the Star of Texas Chuck Wagon cook-off in Austin, Texas the week prior to the Arizona competition. Luckily we were able to get Jerry Baird, from Snyder, Texas to take his Longtrack wagon to Austin so we can just go down there and help him cook.  That make it much easier.

 The time between the two events is only going to be about three days, so I will have to get the wagon and trailer loaded before going to Austin. I have many of the things loaded already and daily I have to go and pull things off the trailer that we will need in Austin.  No problem  Like Nike says, Just Do It.

We will travel pretty light to Austin, compared to what we would usually take if we were cooking on our own wagon.  We only have to take our teepee, sleeping bags, cot, wind screens, ground cooking stove, clothes and some wood.  Actually this time we would have taken the wagon from El Paso, except we are going to pick up my motorcycle from my son, Clayton, who lives in Austin.  He has had my Yamaha VMax since his GSXR was stolen last September.  We are pulling a trailer down to Austin with the hopes that his new cycle will come in while we are there.

We will leave El Paso and drive to Jerry's ranch outside Mason, Texas where we will spend the night. Today is March 9, 2006.

We are now at the ranch and Jerry is cooking pork loin steaks and baked potatoes.  Ummm good!  The last time we were here it was a sack of hamburgers.  Guess we're moving up in the world. It was also raining the last time and we got stuck in front of his house.  That time we were ambling around looking for arrowheads and came across a couple of old hinges lying on the ground by the water tank.

 I  took them home and now they are holding the door on my wood cook stove that I carry to some competitions.

Time to leave the ranch and make our way into Austin with a stop for breakfast in London, Texas.  It sure is nice to have someone else doing the cooking. This place is a typical small town cafe' ...not even one street light.  In the cafe' sits the local cowboys and old timers having breakfast.  One table for about 6 or 7 of them and we at another table.  There are only about two other tables in the whole place.  We are in the place at 6 am and two small children are dropped off by a parent and they get to eat a quick bite of breakfast before the school bus picks them up at about 6:30. I think the grandparents run the cafe.... Felt sorry for them having to be up so early and figured they must go through the same sort of routine at the end of the day. Sure makes for a long day for kids not older than about 8 or 9.

Since this is not about the Austin cook-off  I won't bother you with too many of the details other than to say we are back from Austin and didn't exactly need an armed escort to protect our winnings.  We won second in meat, which was chicken fried steak.  We used Jerry's All Purpose World Championship seasoning as a marinate for the meat and also utilized it in the flour for the batter.

 It was nice.  Oh, and also we got BIG rains during the competition and nearly all of the wagons had to be pulled out of the low ground area with 4 wheel drive vehicles.  Our food categories: bread, potatoes, and beans were sort of middle of the pack overall and were out of the money.  The dessert, however, was really terrible looking.  I didn't roll the dough out thin enough, so when we put it on the top of the peach cobbler....it sank.  That just didn't make a very pretty site.  The cobbler actually had an excellent taste, but as someone once said,  "she don't look so good".  Oh well!!! Sometimes you win sometimes you lose and sometimes you don't even get a smell.

Speaking of not getting a smell,  Last October in Ruidoso, New Mexico at the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium we cooked the best overall meal we had ever done and we sincerely thought we had a shot at winning the whole shebang.  That was the one we didn't even get a smell.  Not even a fourth place in anything.  Skip, Eddie, Steve, Sully, and I did most of the cooking so I guess we know who gets all the creditos.  We did have fun though.  Actually we always have fun.

For the Ruidoso event, Sully flew his plane  in from Ft. Thomas, Arizona and we picked him up at Alamogordo, New Mexico and he spent the weekend helping us cook. Steve Woods came from /Denton, Texas and brought Eddie Sandoval from Ft. Worth.  Monty Montismith, also from Ft, Worth, was a constant story teller and kept us in stitches most of the time.  Manuel Lopez, Ft. Worth resident, provided lots of good help as well as a melodious stream of guitar music and singing.  He was accompanied my Chuck on his guitar.

Now, I have to tell you, Chuck was easy to feed because he ate out of the garbage can most of the time...let me explain.  The Food Network was there doing filming for the food channel and spent a good amount of time in our camp.

 When they exited our camp at the end of the day they caught Chuck sampling some of the food we had just thrown in the trash can.  Chuck is a real piece of work and if we weren't laughing at his funny songs, we were laughing at something he did.  We even awarded him the "Spur of the Moment: award from out camp for television notoriety.  The origin of the award is another story for another time.

Now comes the time for us to get serious about the Arizona cook-off  because we are going to be cooking against some folds we have never met.  California, Arizona, Nevada, New, Mexico, and Texas will be represented.  Silky told me that the Hanging Tree Ranch wagon from Bandera, Texas was also going to be in attendance.

 I sure hope that between us we can make a descent showing and uphold the Texas reputation.

Steve Woods is coming form Denton and we will go from El Paso to Scottsdale in his pickup because the traveling will be more comfortable since he has a four door pick up..

 Pulling my trailer and wagon will be not big deal for his one ton rig.  Skip and I even considered taking two trucks to Arizona because we are going to have so much stuff.  One thing that will make a difference is that we don't have to take any Mesquite wood.

Steve told us in Austin that his Dad wasn't doing very well and was not responding to the dialysis treatment. He and his Dad are very close and according to Steve, his Dad is refusing to do any additional treatment or take any medications.  Basically the doctors haven't given him much hope of lasting more that a couple of weeks.  Steve said he was still planning on joining us in Arizona to serve as a distraction.

To be continued...................