Sourdough Biscuits

Did You Know? Trail Drive Cooks made their sourdough biscuits without yeast. At the beginning of a drive, the cook would mix up a batch of batter and let it ferment in a jar for a day or so. The sourdoughs were made each morning by adding soda and lard to this fermented batter and then cooked between hot coals in a Dutch oven. The amount of batter removed each day to make the sourdoughs was replaced with more flour, salt, and water so that the fermenting process was ongoing during the drive. Trail hands often joked that a cook who made the desirable "light" doughs was always adding blueberries or raisins to their batter just to keep the gnats from flying off with them!

The critical factor in making light sourdoughs was calculating how many coals were placed below and above the oven. Here's an easy calculation when cooking with a Dutch oven. Figure 2 coals per inch of oven diameter. Then place 2 more coals than the oven size on the lid, and place 2 less than the oven size under it.

So if you are cooking in a 12-inch oven, you use a total of 24 coals. For the number of coals underneath, you would subtract 2 from 12 for 10 coals and on top: 12+2 for 14 coals.

Mike Kearby's Texas Copyright 2012

Cowboy Twitter

Did you Know? Even though Jack Dorsey is credited with inventing Twitter and "Tweeting" in 2006, Texas Cowboys were using 140 character sentences way before Dorsey's time.

 It has been said that a Texas Cowboy possessed the rare talent for "saying a whole lot in a mighty few words." Or, "He don't use all of his kindlin' to get a fire started." Here are a few of my favorite Cowboy sayings.

"A winks is as good as a nod to a blind mule."


"Only a fool argues with a skunk, a mule, or a cook."


"Man's the only critter who can be skinned more than once."


"The man who straddles the fence usually has a sore crotch."


"Polishin' your pants on saddle leather don't make you a rider."


"A change of pasture sometimes makes the calf fatter."


"If the saddle creaks, it's not paid for."


"The bigger the mouth, the better it looks shut."


And my all-time favorite:

"Nobody ever drowned himself in sweat."

Mike Kearby's Texas Copyright 2012

Texas Artist / Illustrator: Jack Jackson

Did you Know? Artist/cartoonist, Jack Jackson, (1941-2006) was born in Pandora, Texas (Pop 200) but migrated to Austin in the early sixties where he landed a job at the Texas Ranger humour magazine. Jackson became friends there with Gilbert Shelton. (Another 60's icon) and the two soon found themselves heading off to San Francisco to join the "flower power" revolution. In 1969, Jackson, Shelton, and two other Texans, Fred Todd, and Dave Moriaty bought an offset printing press and started the infamous, Rip Off Press, the original underground comix publisher.  (Photo-Jack Jackson)

 

The press published cult favorites from Shelton's Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers to R. Crumb's Comix and Stories. But history and Texas were never far from Jackson's mind and later set out to produce works of Texas in "real historical terms." Jackson's graphic novels include stories of Juan Seguin and other Mexican-American heroes of the Texas revolution - Los Tejanos; the Karankawa tribe's massacre of the Spaniards - God's Bosom; Sam Houston's time among the natives -Indian Lover: Sam Houston & the Cherokees; the way the Mexicans remember the Alamo -The Alamo: An Epic Told From Both Sides. And my personal favorite: Comanche Moon -The Story of Cynthia Ann and Quanah Parker.

 

 It must also be noted that Jackson is the inspiration behind Texas Tales Illustrated, produced by myself and fellow Mineral Wells native, Mack White.

 

 

Mike Kearby's Texas Copyright 2012