_shoestring Bull Recipes

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• Dress out as many coots as you can find folks (fools) who will accept an invitation for a coot dinner. i.e. allow one coot per fool or one fool per coot! Birds should be dressed out within one month of being shot. Soak birds for 2 - 3 days in salt water. (Use 2 - 3 lbs. salt per gallon of water)Rinse birds and pat dry. Place each bird on a cedar shingle which you've seasoned to taste.Place coots and shingles in a preheated oven, 450 - 500°F for eight hours. (Smoke usually clears out in 3 - 4 hrs.)Allow to cool about thirty minutes. Scrape the coots off of the shingles into a steel drum for transport to a "Hazardous Materials Disposal Center."Serve shingles garnished with crab apples!A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Fowl & Fish

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• Two things act as magnets on little boys, mud puddles and pitch. I'm not talking about the card game "Pitch," but sap from coniferous trees. When the folks took us kids camping, despite repeated warnings and dire threats by Mother, I usually managed to get the sticky stuff on my hands, clothes, and in my hair within thirty minutes of getting to camp. I did it to my folks and my son did it to me. As an old cowboy buddy of mine told me when my boy was born, "You don't pay for your raising till you raise one of your own!" That particular saying has proven true on many other occasions! Anyway...Like many situations in life there is 'the easy way' and 'the hard way' to remedy the situation. Normally the first line of defense in most situations requiring cleanup is soap and water. Besides being sticky in the first degree, pitch immediately attracts dirt. Pitch on a kid's hands will just smear and spread with soap and water. Anything the kid touches ends up sticky, which if he handles enough stuff will wear the pitch off his hands! That is an option, but one most mothers would rather not exercise. Unless you take a set of full body restraints to camp, don't even think you can successfully comb a wad of pitch out of your kid's hair!For a quick fix, dig around in your camp box for your charcoal starter fluid. Any other petroleum distillate, such as white gas, kerosene, etc. will dissolve pitch, but charcoal lighter seems to be the least harsh. Just squirt a little bit in your hands and rub the spot, then wash with soap and water. To clean clothes, first change into something clean and soak the spot with the lighter fluid and work it into the fabric. Repeat a couple of times then hang on a limb to dry. Getting the stuff out of one's hair is a little more difficult. Soak a washrag and gently massage the pitch to dissolve and repeat if needed. Soak another washrag with warm water and rinse. Of course, I shouldn't have to say this, but if it's after dark, use a flashlight or other source of light, not firelight or gas lantern!Spiced with More Tall Tales - Breads

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• Marriage changes everyone who says, "I DO"! Few will argue that these changes do not occur, and in all honesty one must agree that change is good! (Sometimes though it takes a while to see the Good.) For we men, these changes run the gamut from putting the seat back down to wearing color-coordinated clothes. Somewhere on the list, food choices show up sooner or later. Like a balky mule, some menu items cause the changee to curl his lip and others cause him to wonder why it took so long to make the change. Much to my wife's relief, sauerkraut fell into the later category!Years ago Mom would fix sauerkraut and wieners for us kids. It was a quick fix when she got home from work late. Few things were simpler! Slice up a package of wieners and throw them in a pot with a couple of cans of store-bought kraut and dinner was done. While a game warden, I'd throw a couple of cans of kraut and some pre-cooked sausages in my chuck box as a backup meal in case a trip extended longer than planned. Until I met my wife, kraut fell into the lowest 20% of foods I liked. It was palatable and would do in a pinch.Being Czech, she started eating kraut as soon as she quit taking her food through a nipple. By the time we met, she held an advanced degree in judging the quality of kraut and how to cook it! From her I learned the sour in sauerkraut doesn't have to be overpowering. If using store-bought kraut, she prefers fresh over the canned. First thing, she pours it into a colander and rinses it two or three times with warm water. Much of the sour taste ends up going down the drain. Kraut prepared after rinsing takes on the seasoning of the dish being prepared without an overpowering 'sour' taste. Store-bought kraut is a thing of the past around our house now though! Last year a neighbor taught us an anaerobic method of making homemade kraut with no muss, no fuss, no foul odors, and no skimming of scum. It seems that no matter how many quarts we put up, they disappear in just a short time. Whether planning a meal at home or a menu for a camping trip, I've changed the rating on kraut to the top 20%!Spiced with More Tall Tales - Fish and Fowl

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• For those of you who didn't take high school Spanish this translates to 'The Rocks'. Las Piedras Ranch owned by Dwain and Sandy Riney of Montgomery, Texas, is aptly named. Located in Real County, WNW of San Antonio, Las Piedras Ranch exemplifies the Texas 'Hill Country'! Their ranch, though not large by Texas standards, supports a healthy population of native wildlife and is also host to numerous exotic species. These wild, free ranging exotics escaped from neighboring ranches years ago. Dwain and Sandy recently invited me down to cook for some of their hunters. This particular hunt is a 'special hunt' for both the Riney family and the hunters. Once a year Dwain and Sandy donate a hunt for exotic species at Las Piedras to the Montgomery County Cattle Barons' Ball and benefit auction. The money raised from this annual event benefits the Montgomery County Unit of the American Cancer Society. In the course of my visit Dwain pulled out the 'ranch recipe box' and selected several favorites of his and Sandy's that he thought I'd like. In addition Sandy has since called me with a couple of other old family favorites. We hate to think of family heirlooms disappearing, but it happens when you prepare these recipes. My thanks to Dwain and Sandy for sharing them and inviting me down to share their corner of heaven in the Texas Hill Country!Spiced with More Tall Tales - Appetizers

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• If you're not a duck hunter or married to a duck hunter, just skip this recipe. Personally, I've never tried to cook a coot, primarily because I've never even shot at an "Ivory Billed Mallard". Remember, this is the guy who will eat every thing except grits and green lima beans. In this modern age, it seems to me, too many people blame events in their childhood for the mistakes or failures they make as adults. Some rightly so, but I can't help but feel a lot of it is over done!So where is all this leading, you ask yourself? Yup! you guessed it, my childhood. Since my dad first took me duck hunting at age three, the list of things I've done in life longer than I've duck hunted is fairly short. Memories of those first duck hunts are still vivid. Back in that distant past, I learned that the preferred duck of those who wait at home while others duck hunt, to be mallards. Those of the green headed variety! My dad, being a pretty fair hand with a shotgun, seldom got skunked in those days. He'd been there before, but it was a new experience for me, just four years old. About the only thing flying in the marsh that day were coots, which Dad had several different adjectives to describe. I didn't understand why dad didn't shoot them as they patterned by. At that time I obviously thought-ducks are ducks! Wrong! How long I pestered Dad to shoot them, I can't remember. What I do remember is him saying, "Mother didn't like any kind of ducks except those with green heads" and it wouldn't be very smart to take something home she didn't like. Though I was just four years old, that part I understood! I'm sure Dad first passed this recipe on that day. Over the years, Dad repeated this recipe so many times I've memorized it without ever having cooked it.A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Fowl & Fish

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• The mountain men and free trappers who explored the Intermountain West in the early 1800's referred to it as their "possibles" sack. A small leather poke sack with essentials they might 'possibly' need in the course of their travels. Such items as flint, steel, tinder, whetstone, needle and thread were staples along with other small items each individual deemed essential. Today's equivalent takes the shape of a fanny pack or day pack in which we carry things we might need during our trip outdoors be it a day hike or an extended stay. Today's "possibles" most likely include matches in a waterproof container, a map and compass, an extra shoelace, etc., and other important small items excluding of course cell phones and GPS Receivers!What's included with one's "possibles" varies according to a person's wants and needs. Sometime when you're out in the woods with a bunch of folks, sit down after dinner and have everyone go through their "possibles" to see the variety of things that folks consider essential. For sure there will be things peculiar to each individual and include items which at first glance appear insignificant! But...there are those occasions when one of these seemingly insignificant items tucked away in the bottom of a day pack saves the day. Such a day occurred for my pard, Rich Rodgers, on a cold, snowy day in mid-November, 1983.Rich, Tom and Bill Beck, and I were hunting deer and elk out of a horse camp on Indian Creek Airstrip on Middle Fork of Salmon River. A wall tent with smoke wisping from the stack and the glow from a lantern greeted Rich as he trudged in about an hour after dark on the third day. Before he said a word, we knew from the grin on his face and blood on his boots that he'd connected. His first elk, a six-point bull, needed packed out the next day. Starting out as a city kid from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, another dream came true for Rich that cold, snowy November day. Other dreams already realized by Rich included being a collegiate All-American football center at 5' 10" and 210 pounds, obtaining a MS in Range Management on a NCAA scholarship, becoming a farrier under the tutelage of Henry Ketchie, and marrying Sue.Happy hour that evening extended until way past supper as Rich told and re-told the story with more detail each time. After describing where the bull was down, the trail, and the heavy snow conditions, we decided to walk in leading a packhorse, bone the elk, and backpack the meat up to a ridge top where we could get the packhorse with minimal difficulty. One of the details Rich had added the third or fourth time he told the story concerned the steepness of the hill where the bull lay. He told us he'd tied the bull to a short, scrubby tree to keep it from sliding down into the bottom of Mowitch Creek.Rich, Tom, my Black Lab, 'Snoose,' and I left camp in the gray light of dawn leading Black Jack, one of my packhorses. Where Rich's tracks from the previous day hit the horse trail I loosened his cinch and tied him securely to a tree about forty feet off the trail. If recollection serves me correctly, we dropped about 500-600 vertical feet through a foot plus of snow on a mountain steeper than a cow's face to get to the bull.It wasn't the fact that Rich had tied the bull up to keep it on the face of the 'earth' that struck me. It was how he tied it up which caused Tom and I to bust out laughing! The previous day Rich had quickly realized how precarious a position this bull was in if he expected the rest of us to help pack it out. Had the bull slipped into the bottom, it would have been easier to just pack in a frying pan and eat him on the spot! To stabilize the critter, he'd started with a piece of rope from his day pack and tied it to the antlers. This chunk of rope was way too short to reach the only scrubby Doug Fir tenacious enough to grow on such a steep slope. Scrambling up to this scrubby Doug Fir, he tied his remaining piece of rope and stretched it out towards the first line. Guess what? We've all been there! He was still short! Having once been a football player, Rich knew the importance of having an extra shoelace. Connecting the two lengths of rope was a shoelace from among his "possibles"!Whenever campfire talk turns to elk hunting, this bull will forever be known as the "Shoestring Bull!" The last time I saw Rich before he passed away from cancer, the telling of this story again brought the smile from that cold, snowy November night in the wall tent back to his face.Spiced with More Tall Tales - Dedications