January 4,1996

Mother took care of the holiday baking all of her life. Toward the end I cooked the turkeys, but she still furnished the cornbread for the dressing and oatmeal rolls for the feast. She apprenticed on a wood stove on a windmill tank water system. The first yeast bread she made failed to rise. Not wanting to give the hands or her husband a chance to tease her, she buried the dough in the back yard. She went on to become an expert at baking breads and pastries. Her cookies and pies spanned several generations of Mertzon's school kids.

Necessity taught me to cook. The Big Boss hired black cooks for roundups, but the rest of the time, the outfit leaned toward single cowboys and Mexican camps. The choices were the skillet or a horseback ride to Felix or Jose's camp for tortillas and beans. The ranch furnished lots of beef, so the choice came easy. Mother sent down loaves of homemade bread. The days were long enough that it didn't take too fancy a fare to make a meal.

Today's refrigeration makes ranch cooking easier. Artificial biscuits and imitation frozen dinners can support life for weeks on end until acute boredom causes the digestive system to rebel. However, I run a top grade batch outfit. The idea it is harder to cook for one person doesn't float around here. In the days when I served as a back-up to feed eight children, I saw the one plate/one fork theory torn to shreds. The action seven boys and one girl, plus their drop-in company, generate around a table will make a good sized army mess hall seem like a Boston tea room.

I still cook for my family and their guests on visits to the ranch. Several days beforehand, I work out in the kitchen. I juggle three pot lids until I can keep all three in the air at the same time. The improved dexterity pays off once pans start sliding off counter tops and dishes try to jump off the refrigerator shelves. I do 40 deep knee bends a day to limber up to hunt for things in the bottom shelves and lower drawers. I plunge my hands in hot water until the skin builds a tolerance against the heat. I spend at least one Saturday afternoon at the mall in San Angelo growing accustomed to the crowded conditions that always confirm the kitchen is the most popular room in a house.

The scene opens like a Norman Rockwell holiday painting. I wear a starched white apron, tied smartly around my waist. Dust from flour dots my shirt cuffs to accentuate the colors in my white beard. I hold my chin at exactly the same angle General George Washington held his crossing the Delaware.

Laughter fills the room as children drink milk and sodas at the kitchen table and adults lounge against the cabinet counters. Telephones ring unanswered; deer hunters drop by to complain of overturned blinds and misapplied gate locks. No hearths exist to roast chestnuts, so everyone congregates in the area between the stove and the refrigerator, leaving a small channel leading to the pantry. "Granddad" and "Dad" are said in deep reverence.

On the morning of the feast, the crowd thins in the kitchen. The rosy-cheeked chef of yesterday mistakes a piece of French toast under his boot heel for one of the children's fingers and leaps into an open cabinet door full-face. The day also sees the first commode malfunction of the season, the guest bird dog howls for attention in the garage, and Granddad's horses fail to come in for feed the first time of the year, leaving the riders idle to drink Coca-Colas at the house.

In minutes, smoke from the oven vent sets off the fire alarm in the hall. One drumstick kicks out of the truss, sending a thin stream of melted turkey fat down the oven door. "Granddad," if uttered at all, is spoken in a whisper.

Not only does the kitchen empty, but adjacent rooms become stilled. One guest comes to help, (and there always seems to be one). She peels onions and mashes the potatoes, asks yes and no questions, warms oatmeal rolls from Mother's recipe, and bakes a pecan pie from her homeland. Her daughter sets the table. On the way to the trash barrel, the old bird dog follows along, nudging my hind leg, reaffirming our friendship.

Deer hunters break camp to leave and watch the football games; the grandson kills his first deer. And down at the barn, his sister saddles Cindy and rides off in the horse trap, setting off a glow of pride that overrides the hardships of a ranch cook...