Meet the Cook: Jim in Colorado

Say hello to Jim!

Q. What are your favorite things to cook?

I really like outdoor cooking–barbecue/smoking, grilling, cooking with a campfire. Mostly breakfast and dinner food. . . well, and anything in between!

Q. How/when did you learn to cook?

I probably started learning how to cook things at home when I was 11 or 12, though I started learning to cook outdoors and over a campfire when I was as young as 6 or 7. I learned from Pappy (my grandfather) how to make (fried) pancakes. These were regular pancakes he did in a skillet, and I gave him a bad time about them being fried because (as with everything) he used bacon grease. Lots of it.

I learned from my dad and from reading westerns to cook outdoors. Then I would try to make the food on my own when I was out camping. If it was good, I ate it. If not, I left it for the critters. (And sometimes they wouldn’t even eat it!)

Q. Tell us about some of your cooking triumphs.

The first time I made perfect homemade biscuits cooked in a cast iron skillet with a lid was my first triumph. Then perfect pancakes, also made over a campfire.

Q. What was your most memorable cooking tragedy?

I had been fishing and caught 5 or 6 brook trout. They were beauties and sure to be tasty. The tragedy is, I never got to cook them. As I was coming back to camp with my fish, I heard a strange noise coming from camp. As I walked into camp, I saw my tent was moving away from the campsite on its own. Of course, I dropped my fish and ran to see why my tent was moving. All of a sudden, here came a mama bear and she was NOT happy. She proceeded to attack my tent, tearing it to shreds, releasing her two baby cubs from inside. As I was retreating and finding a place to hide, they snagged my stringer of fish and carried them off into the woods with them. A tragedy for me, not so much for them. I found the empty stringer a couple days later about 400 yards from camp, nothing but a few fish bones.

You can read the whole story on my blog.

Q. Describe your kitchen. Do you love it, hate it, and why?

My kitchen is too small. I don’t hate it, but I can’t like it either. I dream of having a huge kitchen with a built-in grill, a fireplace for hanging a dutch oven over, and a big oven and range, as well as place to hang all my cast iron. Someday. . .

Q. Is your pantry organized and are your kitchen drawers tidy? We need to know.

Depends on what you consider organized (drawers and pantry). I pretty much know where things are and what I can’t find, my wife knows where it’s at (or I don’t need it). When she needs something and can’t find it, then I usually know where it’s at. As far as being “organized” — we’re not.

Q. Do you have any favorite family cooking traditions?

There are a lot. One of my favorites is the holiday food we have year after year after year after year. . . such as green bean casserole, some type of fruit pie (preferably blueberry). My grandmother used to make a fine Sunday fried chicken dinner, but that’s something we don’t do anymore. A new tradition we have started, though, is my smoking turkey or pork or brisket (some type of meat) for the holidays for our families.

Q. What is the one gadget (or ten) you couldn’t do without in your kitchen?

I couldn’t live without a cheese grater, can opener, or sharp knives.

Q. If you had to take one food to a deserted island, what would it be?

Beans. It would have to be beans. (Shall I sing about them?)

Q. What is your go-to comfort food?

I would say homemade bread with butter and homemade grape or chokecherry jelly. That whooshes me back to Grandma’s house faster than anything. The other thing would be Dinty Moore Stew with pork-n-beans. (Which goes well with the bread and jelly.) Those are my two favorite comfort foods.

Find all of Jim’s recipes and blog posts here.

Jim blogs at Granddad’s Corner.


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