July 26, 2001

Once in a dream, a cowboy foresaw "The Day of Grand Reckoning," the day all the bad cooks would be gathered and strangled by their own apron strings. His dream brushed reality the spring the Big Boss under a desperate recruitment brought "Good Eye" Jenkins to cook at the old ranch.

"Good Eye" descended from a jungle tribe that burns hardwood trees to make charcoal and cherishes the charred roots for food. "Good Eye's" chuck stayed at the tedious level before a gas flame turns matter to ash in every single kitchen episode excluding one fateful morning when he reversed his procedure by toasting the Boss' bread without turning on the oven.

The rest of the crew consisted of good hands willing to work. But on the third day of Good Eye's cooking, Saint Francis of Assisi would have had a hard time raising morale. A rider named Austin something-or-the-other left the house riding an old dummy named Charlie, as clumsy a piece of horseflesh as ever to grow a witch knot in his tail. In fact, had Charlie had a witch knot in his tail, which he didn't, the weight would have thrown him off balance.

Austin had drawn Charlie several times before. He was a seasoned hand, knew the slick ledge rocks on the east side as well as any of us. I was astounded to see him riding off with his rope tied hard and fast to the horn with not so much as a leather string for a neck rope. Talkative kid named "Pritchet" saved me the responsibility of reminding Austin how dangerous it was to ride ol' stumbling Charlie with one more hazard to hang to in the form of 36-thread manila loop. Austin never looked up. He replied, "Kid Pritchet, it'd be a merciful death to be dragged by ol' Charlie compared to that halfwit cook starving us to death."

A long time later, I started becoming serious about my cooking. Had to, living so far from a café and all the ranch cooks drawing big money cooking for deer camps. Cooks are like book lovers. We get to know each other. Wasn't long until the articles I wrote about food drew responses from readers who like to eat. Soon I was 35 cookbooks into the game and adding inventory every time I passed close to a book store. But last week, I received the biggest surprise of my new avocation. A guy from Central Texas sent a packet titled "Cowboy Recipes of Old."

I enclose the one named Lenora's Cowboy Stew for free:

Saute 1½ pounds of hamburger meat, add three or four cubed potatoes, add one chopped onion, and add one can of ranch beans. (She doesn't say, but I imagine it's a good idea to open the beans beforehand to allow the metallic aroma of the canned chili powder to dissipate in a ventilated kitchen.) Still stunned at the suggestion of hamburger meat as the base of the stew, I decided if I couldn't cook myself out of this mess, I'd write my way free. After awhile I came up with a concession in the form of a poem.

A Salute to Lenora and Her Cowboy Stew:

(Saute one and one half pounds of hamburger meat)
Lenora, as you see by the evidence above,
Hated cowboys,
Good ones and bad ones alike.
Her skillet and her stovetop
Were her weapons of choice:
Her code was the slower the kill, the better the bait.

(Add three or four cubed potatoes and one chopped onion)
If Lenora had been a black widow spider,
Her web would have sagged from her prey.
If Lenora had been a lighthouse keeper,
The fleet would have washed up on the shoals.
And if Lenora had led wagon trains west,
California would still belong to Mexico

(Add one can of ranch beans)
But as you can see from above,
Lenora hated cowboys,
Good ones and bad ones alike.
She sent many a puncher to flounce in his bed.
The ones able to survive lost hair and front teeth.
The ones left standing fled from her reach.

"Good Eye" Jenkins passed, so we heard, from a fall on the ice south of San Antonio, 200 miles below the frost line. Must have been an ice cube, as Good Eye always spilled more than he saved. Jose found old Charlie dead coming off the trail in the Round Hill trap. Whatever killed Charlie doesn't matter, but if he went to Heaven, the angels had better learn to kick both feet from the stirrups plenty fast.

July 26, 2001