Winters in Texas are sometimes notorious, sometimes glorious. This winter barely merits the name. Our local ranchers were happy about how mild it is on one hand, but bemoaning the lack of rainfall on the other. One even said that given the temperature in the 70’s in February, we might be looking at some real blistering days in July and August.

We like to invite friends to come spend a few days away from the snow and deep-freeze when they can get loose. This February our guru chuckwagon cook Carl Hawkins and his wife Jo came to spend the weekend. Having them here with our bunch was nothing short of hilarious. We exchanged recipes, cooked, pulled out the chuckwagon and shared jokes and stories for three or four days. I forgot which, because there was a pretty dense fog a lot of the time.

Carl is known for his quick one-liner responses, like when a woman coming down the chow line looked in a pot and

asked “what’s that?” He replied, “what do you want it to be?!”

He’s also generous and really good to his friends, and brought me a Carhart jacket that Wes Mastic had sewn wonderful leather tooling onto the caller and the bottom edge. It was delightful having them both here and we’re onto him now, because it looks like the real cook is Jo! Well, Except for the barbecue pit, nobody beats Carl’s Brisket!