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There are cowboys and cattle drives still. Although surveying the herd can be done by helicopter, moving the cattle along is still a task for men on horseback. Trying to move cattle along with a low flying helicopter does not work out at all. These are men who need breakfast at 4AM and a good lunch midway through the day and a great supper to end a long day in the saddle.

Kent Rollins grew up in Oklahoma in ranching family. Since 1993 he’s been a cowboy cook using a chuck wagon — a real Studebaker one made in 1876 — and doing that daily grind that begins way before the sun has poked over the flat horizon of the Texas plains.

Kent met his wife Shannon a few years ago and this lovely couple now move the Studebaker around on a trailer, not pulled by horses. Which is pretty darn good because they are logging 40,000 miles a year as they follow the cowboys and the herds.

This book, with recipes from both Kent and Shannon, is real food, for real people, in really remote areas. If you want mushroom gravy out there, you can’t go over to Whole Foods for some shitakes. That’s why many of the recipes here depend on canned foods — like cream of mushroom soup — as an ingredient. This a book for your next camping trip or that stay in a remote cabin where the general store is an hour away.

How can you be self-sufficient and yet very pleased at every meal? With decades of cast iron cooking under his boots and hat, Kent knows. This wonderful arrangement of recipes will delight you. Kent does not profess to be a “chef.” He’s a grand cook who labors under daily three-meal pressure.

Here are some of his ideas for cooking far from the kitchen:

  • Breakfast

Cowboy Brew Cake with Cream Cheese Icing [you eat your morning coffee!]

Angle Flake Biscuits with Chocolate Syrup [cowboy caffeine]

All-Night Sourdough Pancakes

Skeeter’s Sausage Casserole [Italy in Texas]

  • Lunch [aka Dinner]

Sweet-Heat-Barbeque Chopped Pork Sandwiches

Mexican Tortilla Lasagna [the man has Italian genes, I’m sure!]

Smoky Mac and Cheese

Tater Salad with Sweet Jalapeno Relish

  • Appetizers

Fiesta Cabbage Salsa with Citrus Squeeze

Corn Salsa

Apricot Grilled Cheese

  • Supper

Butter-and-Bacon Baked Cornish Game Hens

Baked Potato-Stuffed Pork Chops with Creamy White Gravy

Hop-Along Hominy Casserole

Cheesy Onion Rink Bake

  • Desserts [even cowboys eat dessert]

Bread Pudding with Whisky Cream Sauce [Kent’s secret and favorite recipe]

Brown Sugar Coconut Bars

Cowboy Banana Split Cobbler

Buttermilk Pie

Gooey Marshmallow Chocolate Cake

Although a cowboy sits in the saddle for much of the day, he’s burning calories like a bonfire. And the day is very long. So, you cannot get by on a mere 4,000 calories. You need the pancakes to start with, that tater salad at lunch, the cheesy onions at dinner, and you really need the gooey marshmallow cake for dessert. You really do.

A Taste of Cowboy is a fun book by a man who loves cooking and the cowboy life. It’s a book to page through, admire, and surely to sample from. You could start savory — that tater salad sounds grand — but I’m more include to dip right into the gooey marshmallow cake.

I haven’t been on a horse in decades, but I walk a lot.