As I have mentioned, my husband collects cookbooks. In fact, he owns every cookbook ever published by Cook’s Illustrated. If you have the time and patience (and can afford the often hard to find and expensive ingredients), I must admit most of recipes they publish are foolproof.
However this is his favorite cookbook:
By the time we were allowed to get a television, cowboy shows were a thing of the past but Joel grew up on them. This cookbook contains not only recipes but pictures of the old stars and tidbits about the television shows, movies, and songs from that era. So I can understand why he’s so fond of it.
Many of the recipes were written with a snide dig at other cookbooks:
There are even recipes for genuine cowboy cocktails:
And, if you’re having a dinner party, menu ideas (note the vegetarian option)
However, tonight Joel tells me he’ll be making this dish:
I’ll let you know how it turns out. One thing I do have an affection for from those days when being a cowboy was every little boy (and some girls) dream. Cowboy songs.
Saying nothing in particular 
That’s a riot. I’m not a meat eater, but find this so interesting and quirky and I recall a lot of the folks named. Thanks for showing us.
We generally don’t eat a lot of meat but every now and then Joel has a hankering. Many of those old westerns are so funny to watch but I’m sure to little boys of that time, they were the cat’s meow, as they say.
That’s one cool hobby.
I’m a carnivore, you know, and after this – hungry as a wolf.
I don’t think you could possibly find a simpler recipe for beef stew!
I gladly make it myself and it pretty much looks the same.
Hi Jan,
Texas and cowboys. Hmm… I’m like the kid born in East Berlin who was a member of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist Movement and when I grew up I began teaching at the Humboldt-University in East Berlin. I fell in love with one of my graduate students. We decided to escape to West Berlin when the Free University of Berlin was opened. We both hated the communists. She was shot at the wall, but I managed to escape. That is the way I feel about Texas. As you know I’m an émigré living in Mexico. Viva Mexico! Nice post. Love. Duke
Thanks Duke. I didn’t grew up in Texas but we sure had a lot of cowboy stars show up for our Admissions Day parade every year. Most of the real cowhands in Nevada did not have white skin and so it was always odd to watch all these scrawny white dudes on their tricked out ponies prance down the street past the casinos. I can remember my little brother saying “those aren’t real cowboys!”
I have Paint Your Wagon as a sound track in Pandora…
“The rain is Tess, the fire Joe, and they call the wind…”
I do love the old cowboy songs (well, many of them).
Always fun to read your posts Jan! Hi to Joel.
Thanks!
Always fun to read your posts Jan. Hi to Joel and enjoy the stew. 🙂
It was pretty bland as you can imagine! I had to really pump it up!
Hi. I’m guessing that the stew turned out A-OK.
It was edible!
Not sure I can cope with this. I assumed all cowboys lived on were gtits and beans?, not that I have a clue what grits are as, here we put grits in the bottom of burd cages to absorb guano. I suppose if your diet mostly involves beans having something absorbant may be useful.
Hollywood cowboys probably didn’t live on a diet of beans and grits!
I suppose that’s true
This is fun. I know who James Arness was and who he played, but that’s it. I shall not stew about my lack of cowboy knowledge though. I remember some of the cowboy songs, more the titles than the tunes.
Cowboy songs always had a distinctive twang which made them fun to sing along with.
Brilliant. I’ll listen to all these songs in a row now. Don’t promise any cooking though.
Lololol!!!!
Thank you for this uplifting post!
My pleasure!
I think it’s great that your husband collects cookbooks. Terence and I have been making one recipe a week that is new to us. I didn’t recognised any of those actors – eek!
OMG. I really need to buy that for my husband. Not that he cooks mind you… but he adores all those silly old westerns and clogs up my DVR with endless episodes of Laramie and The Virginian.
😩
It’s a charming book and I think it’s still available on Amazon. I’m not a fan of the cowboy westerns but I enjoyed it.
I despise them, yet they’ve been the background of my life since I married.
🥴