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Dispatch from Turkey: How to Make Venison Kebaps

Online Editors — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:58:47 -0400

by David Draper

I've been traveling through Turkey for the past couple of weeks, both in Istanbul and along the Mediterranean coast. Most of my time was spent doing lots of “research” a.k.a. eating, and if there's one thing I took away from all this hard work it's that Turkey is a street-food country. Everywhere I traveled, there was someone on a street corner selling something to eat, whether it be roasted corn or chestnuts, simit (sort of like a sesame-encrusted bagel), rice-stuffed mussels, fresh melon, or, like most places in Europe, some type of grilled or roasted meat on a skewer.

Of the skewered meats, one of my favorites was an adana kebap, like those from Musam Ocakbasi just a block or so off Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Adana, or kiyma, kebap is made from ground meat, usually lamb, that gets molded onto a long, flat skewer and grilled over coals. A little crunchy on the outside and moist in the middle, the kebap is served with a warm flatbread and zerzavat, an onion salad (see recipe below). Some places also provide either a yogurt or spicy tomato sauce as well.

I couldn't help but think an adana kebap could translate into something from the Wild Chef freezer, so I did a little research and came up with this recipe using ground venison in place of the lamb. If you mix your ground venison a little heavy on the pork or beef tallow, all the better, as you want to keep the mixture as moist as possible. In the following recipe, I added an egg to help hold everything together.

Venison Adana Kebaps

Ingredients
- 1 pound ground venison
- 1 egg
- 3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 1/2 cup parsley, chopped fine
- 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp. cumin
- 1 tsp. salt

Directions
1. Add the ingredients to a large bowl and, using your hands, mix everything together quickly, but thoroughly. Cover and place the bowl in the refrigerator for about an hour to let the flavors combine and mixture set.

2. Remove the meat mix from the refrigerator and pull off a piece about the size of an egg. Form this tightly and evenly along the length of a flat skewer. (Try to find the widest, flattest skewers you can. These are close to what they use in Turkey, though not exact.) And if you don't have a flat skewer, you can form elongated patties, sort of like a flattened sausage. Repeat with the remaining mix.

3. Place the skewers over a medium-hot fire and grill, turning often, until the outside is a bit charred and the inside is cooked through. Serve with warm flat bread and zerzavat.

Zerzavat

Ingredients
- 1 medium red onion, sliced thin
- 1 tsp. sumac
- 1/4 cup parsley, chopped fine
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 4 lemon wedges

Directions
Mix first four ingredients together and serve immediately with lemon wedges.

The 35 Best Photos From Field & Stream's 2012 Spring Trail Cam Contest: Round II

Dave_Maccar — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:15:02 -0400

Who says trail cams are only fun in the fall? Set yours out this spring, then send us your best photos. You could win a new Bushnell Trophy Cam HD (MSRP $323.95).

Here's how it works. This contest will have three rounds. The first, Round I, began, March 12, and closed on April 12. Round II ran from April 12 to May 12, and Round III from May 14 to June 14. We're giving away three Bushnell Trophy Cam HDs (MSRP: $323.95) in each round, one cam each to the top three entries, as chosen by our editors.

Congrats to users luna, mod70 and Semibald, who each have won a Trophy Cam for their shots in Round II.

So go set your trail cams up already. And have fun! --The Editors

Click here for more info on the prizes.

Click here to enter ROUND III of the 2012 SPRING TRAIL CAM CONTEST

The 50 Best Field & Stream Reader Photos from April 2012

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 02 May 2012 09:25:49 -0400

Each month, Field & Stream editors review the hundreds of photos submitted by readers to our Trophy Room. If your photo is chosen to be printed in the Game Faces section of the magazine, you’ll win a Rapala Fish ‘N Fillet knife!

Submit your photos here!

Here are the other best reader photo collections from this year:

January 2012

February 2012

March 2012

Recipe: Pronghorn Guisada

Sarah Smith — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:43:38 -0400

by David Draper

I’ve been blessed to be able to eat some pretty good meals in my life, from elk steaks in the high country to duck confit in fancy restaurants. But I have to say I enjoy nothing more than to sit down to a simple meal like this pronghorn guisada. A little meat, a few beans, and some tortillas—add in a couple cold beers to quench the heat and you’d be hard pressed to find me any happier.

A lot of recipes for guisada suggest cutting the meat in cubes, but I prefer to brown and braise whole round steaks, then slice them up just before serving. I feel you get a better fond—those crunchy brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan—that way, which really amps up the meaty flavor of this spicy Tex-Mex stew.

However you decide to do it, guisada is great for those tougher cuts of meat from the shoulder or rear ham. The long, simmering braise breaks down the chewy fibers, creating meat that practically melts in your mouth. And don’t worry if you don’t have pronghorn. This works great with any type of venison. But if you do have some antelope cuts in the freezer, treat yourself with this dish.

Pronghorn Guisada

Ingredients:

-4 pronghorn antelope steaks
-2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, plus one
-Kosher salt
-2 Tbsp. flour
-½ tsp. cumin
-½ tsp. onion powder
-½ tsp. paprika
-½ medium onion, sliced
-2 Tbsp. brown sugar
-2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
-½ cup Guinness (or any dark beer)
-½ cup vegetable stock
-3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped
-3-5 jalapeño peppers, sliced ¼-inch thick
-1 14.5-oz. can diced tomatoes

Directions:

1. Liberally salt both sides of the steaks. Using a meat tenderizer, rolling pin, or the flat side of a heavy butcher knife, pound the steaks to ¼ inch thick and let the meat rest 10 minutes. Pat dry with paper towels.

2. Whisk together the flour, cumin, onion powder, and paprika. Dust the antelope steaks with the seasoned flour.

3. Heat 2 Tbsp. of the oil in a pan over medium-high heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the steaks and fry for 6 to 8 minutes, flipping once halfway through. Remove the steaks from the oil to a paper-towel lined plate.

4. Transfer the sliced onions and a pinch of salt to the pan, adding additional oil if necessary, and sauté until translucent, about 3 to 5 minutes. Sprinkle brown sugar over the onions, stirring to coat. Deglaze the pan with a few dashes of Worcestershire, scraping up any browned bits.

5. Return steaks to the pan, along with next five ingredients. Lower the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for 1 ½ to 2 hours, until meat is tender. Remove the lid, raise the heat, and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the sauce is reduced by half.

6. Serve with tortillas, ranch beans, and lime wedges.

Food Fight Friday: Mexican Stew vs. Ethiopian BBQ

Sarah Smith — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:45:05 -0400

by David Draper

Last week, Wild Chef reader Levi Banks gave us some great-looking Southwestern-inspired venison steaks, but this week he’s hopped the pond to Africa. His wife’s Ethiopian-style barbecue venison looks amazing and is cooked to perfection. I’m even intrigued by the purple cauliflower, which I’m betting tastes as unique as it looks. Still, I’m in it to win it, so he’ll have to face off against what might be my all-time favorite dish—guisada, prepared here with pronghorn.

David Draper’s Pronghorn Guisada

Translated from Spanish, guisada means stew, although most refer to carne guisada as meat gravy. I first found a recipe for venison guisada in the NRA Members Wild Game Cookbook many years ago, though I’ve since adapted and refined that original version. Of all the meats I’ve made this with -- and I’ve tried about everything -- pronghorn is the best. Something about the meat’s flavor lends itself to Tex-Mex recipes. Check back next week for a recipe.

Levi Banks’ Barbecued Venison with Plum Sauce and Pan Roasted Cauliflower

We are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia, so we decided we had better learn about the country—and what better way than by learning about the food. My wife worked for a few hours and dirtied a lot of dishes to make this. She had to make a few substitutions (no fresh plums or tamarind paste), but it was worth it. It's based on a recipe that used beef from The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa.

Don’t let Levi hog the spotlight. I know you’ve got some great wild game photos to share. Just send them fswildchef@gmail.com and we’ll feature them here.

Wild Sides: Squash and Broccoli Bake

Sarah Smith — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:24:01 -0400

by David Draper

The recipe would probably be more appropriate posted in the fall, but the other day, in my root cellar, I (literally) stumbled over a milk crate full of spaghetti squash that I’d overlooked all winter. Normally I use the pasta substitute as a delivery system for some marinara or venison ragù, but here they were, forgotten in the basement. Suffice to say, I’ll be cooking a lot of squash in the coming weeks and will be trying some new recipes, like this simple squash-and-vegetable bake.

Squash and Broccoli Bake

Ingredients:
-1 spaghetti squash, cut in half lengthwise
-1 tsp. salt
-1 small head broccoli, rinsed and chopped
-2 Tbsp. olive oil
-1 Tbsp. butter
-1 medium onion, diced
-3 garlic cloves, minced
-¼ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
-1 ½ tsp. dried parsley
-1 ½ tsp. dried thyme
-Salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove seeds and pulp from one of the squash halves. (Bag and save second half for later use.) Salt and pepper the open face of the squash. Place the squash open-side down in an oven-safe baking dish. Add water to a depth of about 1 inch. Bake in oven for 30 to 45 minutes, until the tip of a knife pierces the skin easily.

2. Meanwhile, bring 2 quarts of water and 1 tsp. salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add broccoli and blanch for 3 to 4 minutes to set color. Drain and reserve.

3. Heat olive oil and butter in a sauté pan set over medium heat. Add onion and cook until just translucent, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Toss drained broccoli with onions and garlic and sauté briefly. Remove from heat.

4. When the squash is cooked, remove it from the oven. Using a fork, pull the meat from the squash, transferring it to a large bowl. Toss the squash with the broccoli, onions, and garlic. Stir in the Parmesan, along with the herbs and salt and pepper. Scoop mix back into the squash half and place in the oven. Bake until cheese is melted, about 10 minutes.

Bear Down: A Field & Stream Adventure on Prince of Wales Island

Online Editors — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:17:57 -0400

by Steve Rinella

Ronny and I were drifting in a Lund skiff 200 yards offshore along the coast of Southeast Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island, about 8 miles from my hunting and fishing shack. To my surprise, he’d just announced that it was no longer necessary for him to share in the duty of glassing for black bears.

“How do you figure that?” I asked.

He was kicked back on the bench seat, smoking a cigar. “Because I can tell without even looking that there are no bears within sight right now,” he said.

“How can you tell that?”
“Because if there was, you’d have said, ‘Uh-oh, there’s a bear!’”

There were limits to how far I could pursue this argument. Ronny’s a contractor, and I’m indebted to him for employing me all through college with higher-than-normal wages and lower-than--normal hours. So rather than pressing my case, I returned to my preferred position for observing bears: feet over the engine’s tiller, back against the gunwale, eyes on my binoculars. Ronny tried to return to his preferred position, but first he had to adjust his makeshift pillow of flotation jackets. As I scanned the shoreline, I noticed a black object emerging on a patch of sedges that grew along the seam where the coastal rain forest ended and the tidal zone began.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “There’s a bear!”
“See? I told you.”

The bear had a swayback, a potbelly, and a block-shaped head with ears that seemed short and rounded rather than tall and pointed. In other words, it looked like a good-size boar. But before we could form a plan, the bear fed its way back into the timber. I lifted the outboard out of the water and used an electric trolling motor to silently approach a point of land that would shield us from the bear’s last location. We beached the boat beneath a large cedar that had tipped into the water. A long stretch of shoreline reached away from us, and we watched it to see if the bear would reappear. If it did, the wind would be perfect for Ronny to climb out of the boat and make a stalk. (It’s illegal to shoot a bear from a boat on Prince of Wales Island.)

Maybe 15 minutes passed without anything happening. I assumed that the bear had either headed off into the forest or turned back the other way. I had a Knight & Hale predator call around my neck. I got to wondering if the plaintive bleats of a deer fawn might inspire the bear to come out and have a look. I cut loose on the call without mentioning my plan to Ronny, as I figured whatever happened would happen very far away. Instead I was answered by the sudden and close sound of claw on rock. Ronny and I both whirled our heads around to see a large male bear coming toward us like a pit bull crossing its yard to meet an uninvited intruder at the gate. If it had been a fish, we could have cast to it with a cane pole. I yelled at Ronny to jump out of the boat and shoot.

He glanced over the gunwale and gave a frantic announcement. “The water’s over my boots!”

“Your boots?” I yelled. “Who cares about your damn boots?”

By then the bear had realized that he was not approaching a wounded fawn after all. He spun around and vanished back into the timber. Without saying a word, Ronny and I started laughing so hard that it eventually became painful. It was his third close encounter with a boar in as many days.

A Bruin to Earn

While smart-asses do not generally make the best hunting partners, Ronny turns this generalization on its head. He’s an ambitious and dedicated grouse hunter, the kind who can turn a one-flush day into a one-bird day. He’s also a reliable friend who’s willing to make sacrifices for his buddies. One time, when I was down on my luck, he traded me a perfectly good Ford for a not-so-good chain saw. Though he didn’t realize it, I’d taken him on this bear hunt for reasons that went beyond my appreciation of his company. Years before, Ronny had been on a guided bear hunt in Canada that had left him with a bad, long-lasting impression. He’d gone up there as the guest of a business associate who’d arranged the trip. Their outfitter didn’t like to do anything in the morning. His clients would just sit around eating bacon and drinking coffee. In the afternoon he’d drive the hunters out to their stands, which were positioned near bait barrels along logging roads. The barrels had been filled with liquefied hard candy at a factory. Bears came in as though they were under a spell, like kids visiting their Halloween baskets the day after trick-or-treating. Later, Ronny remarked that the only thing he’d learned about bear biology or ecology was that bears behave in unusual ways when presented with a blend of refined sugar, corn syrup, artificial flavors and colors, emulsifiers, suspension agents, and preservatives. When Ronny killed a bear and inquired about the guide’s method of packaging meat, the guide behaved as though he’d never heard of something as outlandish as eating a bear.

Hearing this story put me into the position of being a bear hunting ambassador. I felt obligated to show Ronny another side of bear hunting—a side where bears go about their natural business in a region that forces you to develop an appreciation for the land you’re on and the species you’re after. As it happened, I had the perfect setup for such a task: a shack on the southern end of Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island.

That I own the place is thanks to the fact that my two brothers and I, back in 2004, simultaneously entered that brief period of life when you have money but no spouse to tell you how to spend it. Along with a buddy, we made the largely impulsive decision to buy the lopsided and shoebox-shaped structure that sits on tilted pilings over the tideline of a remote cove. The cove is surrounded largely by Tongass National Forest, and is accessible only by plane or boat. It is completely off the grid. We get our water from a gravity-fed hose dunked into the creek that comes off the mountain behind the house and flows beneath the front right corner of the deck. For the most part, phones do not get a signal. Electricity is from a Honda generator. Our hot tub is a Rubbermaid livestock watering tank that we shipped up on a boat from Seattle; the water is heated by a woodburning stove. Instead of a flush toilet there’s a hole in the ground and a bucket of lime. Mink drag their catch into the workshop and leave the bones and scales where they fall. Old-growth spruce and hemlock lean menacingly over everything we own—including the three chain saws, three outboard engines, one skiff, and dozens of rusted oil drums and hundreds of even rustier tools that the previous owner abandoned when he walked away from the place and never returned.

Whenever I’m justifying my purchase of the shack to my wife, I remind her that Prince of Wales Island has one of the—or perhaps the—densest black bear populations on earth. The animals inhabit a crazily shaped island with a third less landmass than the island of Hawaii but over three times as much coastline. Since it’s difficult for a bear to get more than a few miles away from the shore, you tend to see a lot of them hanging out along the water’s edge. This is especially true during the salmon runs of mid to late summer, when it’s common to encounter a gang of three or four mature bears milling around a stream mouth. As easy as it is to find bears during the salmon season, it’s not a good time to hunt them. Alaska tourism brochures love to show bears eating chrome-colored salmon dragged fresh from the water, but it’s just as common for them to eat dead and rotten salmon that they dig out of the mud at low tide. This leaves their flesh tasting like…well, dead and rotten salmon.

Some hunters will happily kill these salmon-gorged bears, but that makes as much sense to me as raising a tomato garden and then collecting the fruit after it falls to the ground and turns moldy. Rather, the best time to kill bears is within the first couple of weeks after their emergence from hibernation. Their salmon-flavored fat has burned off, and they’re eating little besides the grass found along the tidal flats and stream mouths. This gives their meat a beefy goodness.

On Prince of Wales Island, bears can emerge as early as early April or as late as late May, depending on myriad factors such as snow depth, air temperature, fat reserves, and even the gender and size of the bear. Typically, though, you’ll start seeing mature males consistently during the first week of May, and that’s when Ronny and I landed in Ketchikan. The weather was typical for that time of year: low 40s to mid 50s, plenty of rain. The next morning we hopped a small floatplane that landed us at the cove. It took us a day to get ready: We cleaned up after the mink that had scattered a hundred dollars’ worth of freeze-dried food all over the place. We hauled in some firewood and split kindling. We wiped away the new layer of mold that had grown over most of the shack’s interior surfaces since my last visit. And we waited for a high tide so we could launch the skiff. We started hunting early the next morning.

Blacktail to Black Bear

Prince of Wales Island is surrounded by an intercoastal maze, where small islands are scattered across the ocean as thick as black pepper sprinkled on a fried egg. To find bears in such an area, you want to look at either a lot of shoreline very quickly or a small amount of shoreline very carefully. I tend toward the small and careful end of the spectrum, though to make this work you need to make sure that the small area is the right area. Bears are looking for grass when they come out of hibernation. It grows best where there are accumulations of soil without the towering stands of timber that block out the sun. These conditions are generally provided where streams come roaring down from the mountains to meet the ocean. The annual flood cycle prevents the growth of trees, and the streams’ sediments collect as wedge-shaped deltas and low-lying floodplains just inland from the tideline. These are known as grass flats in bear hunting lingo, and you’re doing the right thing if you can cut your boat engine and drift on the current through a place where it’s possible to see two or three of these grass flats all at once. That’s what Ronny and I had been doing when our argument about glassing etiquette was interrupted by the bear that gave us the slip, thanks to Ronny’s momentary fear of wet socks.

We tried a different tactic the next day, mainly so I could avoid any nagging feeling that I’m a complacent hunter who’s stuck in his ways. Instead of glassing likely areas from the boat, I figured that we ought to split up and try some still-hunting. I dropped Ronny near a large grass flat in the late afternoon and then motored to a network of meadows formed where a shallow, braided river flowed into the head of a fjord. The tide was all the way out when I got there. I tied an anchor line to the bow of the skiff and carried the anchor across a couple of hundred yards of mud and busted clamshells. I figured I had a couple of hours until the water came up that high.

I moved slowly as I entered the first meadow, paying special attention to the shadowy edges where the grass ended and the timber began. Maybe just a half hour later I got a glimpse of a bear—or at least a bear’s rump. It was about 200 yards away, ambling away from me along the edge of a meadow. It vanished before I could tell if it was a male or female.

Figuring that I might see the bear again if I moved forward a bit, I continued carefully in an upstream direction. As I eased along, I caught another glimpse of the bear, a little farther away. Again it was just the rump, and again it disappeared. I crept forward until I reached a large uprooted stump where I could see the entire meadow. I looked around for several minutes, but there was no bear to be found.

I gave a few bleats on my predator call, half expecting a bear to come busting out of the trees. Instead, a blacktail doe crashed out of the timber and headed right toward me. I thought that the deer had nothing but an expanse of flat ground to cross, and I was curious to see how far she’d come before she realized what I was. But all of a sudden she mysteriously dropped from view. Apparently there was a dip in the topography that was big enough to conceal a deer, so I crawled in that direction until I came into view of an agitated female deer staring at a completely unconcerned male black bear. Both were hidden in a large, soggy depression. All I could see of the bear was the upper third of its body, but I could tell it was a mature male. I hunkered back down, checked the wind again, and crawled forward. The next time I popped up, the bear was only 40 yards away. I was shooting a Carolina Custom Rifle in 7mm Rem. Mag. and put a round through both of its lungs. The bear entered the woods along a heavily used trail covered in moss and bear droppings. I followed for about 30 yards and found a dark shape lying in the middle of the trail. I watched the shape for any twitches or movement. It was dead still.

By now I was worried about my boat. It was fixed to a light mushroom anchor and I had visions of it drifting away. I gutted the bear quickly, doing a careful job not to spill any fluids on the exposed meat inside the chest cavity. With the guts out, the animal was light enough for me to move it a little bit. I dragged it out to the meadow and sprawled it out, belly side down, with the pelvis split open. It would cool quickly in the evening air. I put my jacket over the carcass to add a touch of human odor that might deter other bears. Then I went back into the woods and dragged the gut pile off in another direction. Any bear that came along would go for the guts first—they can eat soft tissues in a hurry, wolfing them down before a larger bear has a chance to come along and steal them.

With that taken care of, I raced down to my boat. When I got within sight of the inlet I was relieved to see that the boat was still anchored in place, though it was now floating in deep water. I waded out up to my chest, feeling around for the anchor with my feet. Just when I was thinking that I’d have to swim for the boat, my ankle hung up on the anchor line. I pulled the boat in and then picked up Ronny in the early moments of darkness. He hadn’t seen a thing.

The Last Chance

Ronny’s bad luck continued. One day, for instance, we spotted a boar from the boat and hatched an initial plot to land on a small island just across the water from where the bear was feeding. After a short stalk, Ronny would be able to reach the bear by shooting across an expanse of water. But after we studied the layout of the island from a distance, we decided that the shot would be too far away. So, instead, we planned a convoluted stalk coming from down the beach and over a house-size outcropping of rock that jutted into the water—a stalk that somehow ended with me falling into a crevice in the rock and cutting my lip and biting my tongue and scratching my face. The bear was long gone by the time we got to where it had been. From there, though, we could see that the small island was actually only 200 yards away. It would have been easy pickings.

My concern about Ronny’s impression of bear hunting was quickly being replaced by a more worrisome concern that he’d come up empty-handed after a week of very hard and honest hunting. Those feelings were amplified even more when the last full day of our trip rolled around. We spent that morning still-hunting meadows along river mouths, and the rest of the day watching grass flats from the skiff. Toward dusk I announced that we were out of time, and we began the long trip back to the shack as the evening faded toward darkness. Ronny was at the tiller and I was up front, giving myself motion sickness by looking through binoculars as we cruised over the low swells. At one point I got a particularly long-ranging view down the length of the fjord, and I began a careful study of various blackish and roundish objects that littered the beaches far out ahead. Within seconds I blurted out the now familiar words.

“Uh-oh! There’s a bear!”

Killing a bear requires that a lot of things come together all at once, and this time the initial components all fell in place. The wind was right; the bear stayed on the shoreline and kept coming along; we found an out-of-sight place to land the boat where the stalk wouldn’t be interrupted by insurmountable outcroppings. Ronny climbed from the boat and made a careful upwind approach. He moved when the bear was occupied with feeding, and he held tight whenever the bear checked its surroundings. At 200 yards Ronny stopped behind a boulder to wait. From my vantage I could see that the bear was a solid boar. It moved another 30 yards toward Ronny and gave him a broadside shot. The bear went down hard and fast.

It was well past dark by the time we had the animal gutted and loaded into the skiff. Another hour would pass before we picked our way back to the shack through the dark and hazard-filled waters; another five hours would pass before we had both of our bears skinned and the boned-out meat packed for shipment. Toward dawn, as it started to drizzle, I watched Ronny kneel on the floor of the shop and run his hands through the thick and iridescent fur of his bear. He looked exhausted and relieved and rewarded, like a guy who’d just taken possession of something that he’d earned through hard work.

If you are interested in planning a bear hunt on Prince of Wales Island, visit the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website to download maps and information on permits and regulations for bear hunting in Southeast Alaska.

Bear Down: A Field & Stream Adventure on Prince of Wales Island

Online Editors — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:17:57 -0400

by Steve Rinella

“How do you figure that?” I asked.

He was kicked back on the bench seat, smoking a cigar. “Because I can tell without even looking that there are no bears within sight right now,” he said.

“How can you tell that?”
“Because if there was, you’d have said, ‘Uh-oh, there’s a bear!’”

“Uh-oh,” I said. “There’s a bear!”
“See? I told you.”

He glanced over the gunwale and gave a frantic announcement. “The water’s over my boots!”

“Your boots?” I yelled. “Who cares about your damn boots?”

A Bruin to Earn

Blacktail to Black Bear

The Last Chance

“Uh-oh! There’s a bear!”

The Toast: A Review of Crown Royal Black

Online Editors — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:22:33 -0400

By Colin Kearns

Draper and I have been talking about adding another regular on the blog — something to help wash down all of the great game and fish that’s served here. So, we present The Toast. Every now and then we’ll bring reviews, recipes and stories of our favorite drinks (and, no, not all will be booze) to enjoy with a meal or just to celebrate a good day outdoors.

I’ll kick The Toast off with some notes about a new whiskey I was lucky to enjoy over the last month: Crown Royal Black. I’m definitely more of a bourbon and rye guy, but I enjoy Canadian whiskey now and then. I’ve always liked classic Crown — but now I like Black more.

Black (90 proof) is stronger than Crown Royal (80 proof), and, as it’s name suggests, is darker in color — thanks to the added oak flavor. The whiskey is a little sweet, with notes of maple and vanilla. And, man, is it smooth. A couple Fridays ago, at the end of the workday, a few of us at the office enjoyed a drink of Black, neat. We were all impressed by how easy it went down.

I was curious how Black would work in a cocktail, so last night, with the last of my bottle, I mixed an Old Fashioned. I took one sip and wished I’d used the entire bottle for this cocktail. It was bold. It was smooth. It was balanced. I mean, it was really good. If only I could’ve made another…

I’ve written about the Old Fashioned before, but what follows is what I’ve found to be the absolute perfect recipe. (The “research” was grueling, let me tell you.) I hope you enjoy.

The (Perfect) Old Fashioned

Ingredients
1/4 ounce rich simple syrup*
3 dashes Angostura bitters
2 ounces Crown Royal Black (or a good rye or bourbon)
Orange peel for garnish

*Unlike simple syrup, which is equal parts sugar and water, a rich simple syrup is two parts sugar to one part water. Add two cups of turbinado sugar and one cup water to a sauce pan. Heat over medium low, stirring frequently to dissolve the sugar. As soon as the syrup shows signs of boiling, remove it from the heat and let cool. The syrup will last about a month.

Directions
Add the syrup and bitters to a rocks glass and stir. Add the whiskey. Add ice (preferably one large block) and stir about 20 to 30 times, or until you feel the outside of the glass turn cold. Let the cocktail sit.

In the meantime, cut a chunk of peel from an orange. (You want the peel only. The white pith will make the drink bitter.) Hold the peel over the glass, and squeeze the oils in to the drink. Then run the peel around the rim of the glass before dropping it into the drink. Stir the cocktail a couple more times. Cheers.

The 50 Best Photos From Field & Stream's 2012 Spring Trail Cam Contest: Round I

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:22:02 -0400

Who says trail cams are only fun in the fall? Set yours out this spring, then send us your best photos. You could win a new Bushnell Trophy Cam HD (MSRP $323.95).

Here's how it works. This contest will have three rounds. The first, Round I, starts today, March 12, and closes on April 12. Round II runs from April 12 to May 12, and Round III from May 12 to June 12. We're giving away three Bushnell Trophy Cam HDs (MSRP: $323.95) in each round, one cam each to the top three entries, as chosen by our editors.

Congratulations to users Kim Doucette Kelly, Isham C. Shelby and Stephen Schimacher who each will receive a camera for their entries in Round!

So go set your trail cams up already. And have fun! --The Editors

Click here for more info on the prizes.

Click here to enter ROUND II of the 2012 SPRING TRAIL CAM CONTEST

Food Fight Friday: Elk Steak vs. Deer Steak

Online Editors — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:33:45 -0400

by David Draper

This nice spring weather we’ve all been enjoying has really kick-started our favorite time of year—grilling season. It’s time to break out the coals and kettle grill, season up some steaks, burgers, ribs and chops, and put meat to the fire. Or, if you were lucky enough to win a Wild Chef contest, like reader Levi Banks, then you could just heat up the Camp Chef Grill Pan and cook your venison steaks on it. Coincidentally, I did the same with some elks steaks the other day. Now it’s up to you to decide whose looks better.

Draper’s Elk Steaks

I can’t take all the credit for these steaks as I didn’t shoot the elk they came from; my girlfriend T. Rebel’s dad did. Last fall, he drew a once-in-a-lifetime Nebraska bull tag, and I got the honor of guiding him to a nice 6x6. In return, he let me have some meat (and allows me to date his daughter). Fair trade, I say. These steaks were simply cooked. First, I got my pan screaming hot, then grilled them for about 4 to 5 minutes on each side, rotating them 90 degrees after a few minutes to get the cool cross-hatched grill marks you see here.

Mrs. Levi Banks Southwestern Venison Steaks

My wife did this one. I have to give her credit: She sometimes asks what I would like or how it might be good, and I just said, “I don't know, grill it?” She sliced up some deer with just salt and pepper and cooked it in the grill pan I got as a prize from the Wild Chef. Then the veggies—red onion, red bell pepper, zucchini, and corn—were sautéed in another pan with a little cumin and maybe chili powder. Then obviously the green stuff is guacamole.

Vote for your favorite, and don’t forget to send your food photos to fswildchef@gmail.com.

Eating Red Meat Makes You Happier

Online Editors — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:25:13 -0400

by David Draper

I learned not so long ago that if you don’t like what science is telling you, keep reading the newspapers because surely another study will come along that supports your belief system. You might remember my post last month railing against Harvard post-doctorate fellow An Pan’s study claiming those of us who ate red meat had a 20 percent greater chance of dying. (Kudos to commenter Beerbear who noted: Huh, so I move from 100 percent into the 120 percent chance of dying category...I’ll be danged.)

Well, I knew if I kept searching, I’d find some equally smart folks who would tell me it was okay to eat red meat. This study reported in The Telegraph gives proof to something I’ve known all along: Eating meat makes you happy.

Professor Felice Jacka, who led the research by Deakin University in Victoria [Australia] said: We had originally thought that red meat might not be good for mental health but it turns out that it actually may be quite important. When we looked at women consuming less than the recommended amount of red meat in our study, we found that they were twice as likely to have a diagnosed depressive or anxiety disorder as those consuming the recommended amount.

Now, because I called out An Pan for generalizing, I will admit to doing the same and point out the link between happiness and eating didn’t extend to all meats.

"Interestingly, there was no relationship between other forms of protein, such as chicken, pork, fish or plant-based proteins, and mental health. Vegetarianism was not the explanation either.”

However, I’m not a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard who is trying to support an empirical fact, but instead, just a humble blogger looking to justify his diet and kick-start the conversation supporting my belief (not fact) that all food-based research is biased one way or the other. So, I’m going to keep eating like I do until my own mortality gets too scary to bear, at which time I’ll probably just lie to my doctor.

I think Wild Chef reader Crowman said it best in my previous post: Eat right, exercise daily, die anyway.

The 50 Best Field & Stream Reader Photos from March 2012

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:00:43 -0400

Submit your photos here!

Here are the other best reader photo collections from this year:

January 2012

February 2012

Tell Us Your Favorite Kitchen Gadget, Win a Sushi Maker Winner Announced

Sarah Smith — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:41:34 -0400

by David Draper

Thanks to all the readers who took the time to tell us about their favorite kitchen gadgets. Among all the shout-outs to Kitchen Aid mixers (which I covet from afar), Ninja processors (which I’d never heard of before), and coffee makers (obvious choice), were some truly great posts. Some were funny, some were serious, and some were just plain odd. And you guys know I’m a big fan of odd.

One of my favorites posts came from usmcturkey, who, I’m pretty sure, was serious when he nominated his Moo Mixer. You’ve got to be pretty passionate about your beverage of choice and secure in your manhood to proudly sip from a frothy cup of chocolate milk that moos.

I think Wild Chef reader Sanjuancb might have an unhealthy obsession with Alton Brown, but I do have to agree with his assessment that the wooden spoon is pretty much the ultimate kitchen utensil. Even though, like Levi Banks mentions, it was many a parent’s disciplinary tool of choice when I was growing up. (You might not think a wooden spoon can’t break against an adolescent’s butt, but, trust me, it can. And, before you call child protective services, let me just say my brother totally deserved it.)

Another utensil that got some props (and stood in when mom didn’t have a wooden spoon handy) was the spatula. From reader 2lb. test:

My FoodSaver is near the top of the list but it pales in comparison to the usefulness of my sharpened spatula. It’s just a normal spatula that I grinded an edge on. Making cheesesteaks or grilled cheese? Do your stirring and flipping, pull it off and slice the sandwich to manageable size. Great for slicing pizza and even vegetables in a pinch. It’s also handy for scraping on stuck-on grime during clean up.

But the best comment, and the winner of the Sushezi, was posted over on the Field & Stream Facebook page, where reader Bob Lindsey gave props, I think, to his better half when he said without his wife, he “could barely boil water.” I’m no Dr. Phil here, but calling your wife a kitchen gadget might not be the compliment she is looking for, Bob. My advice: Be very suspect about what she’s serving you for the next few weeks lest you end up with an “accidental” case of food poisoning.

Is All Red Meat Bad For You? (Spoiler Alert: No, It's Not)

Sarah Smith — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:02:24 -0400

by David Draper

Despite the alarmist headline in the Los Angeles Times admonishing, “All Red Meat Is Bad for You, New Study Says,” I’m taking no less pleasure in having a freezer full of venison. Beyond the headline, the article reads like a scare tactic, threatening imminent death on anyone daring to eat a filet mignon.

“…Adding just one 3-ounce serving of unprocessed red meat—picture a piece of steak no bigger than a deck of cards—to one's daily diet was associated with a 13 percent greater chance of dying during the course of the study.

“Even worse, adding an extra daily serving of processed red meat, such as a hot dog or two slices of bacon, was linked to a 20 percent higher risk of death during the study.

“‘Any red meat you eat contributes to the risk,’ said An Pan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and lead author of the study, published online Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.”

Far be it from me to argue with a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, but after a brief look through the study, I take issue with the premise that “any red meat” increases the risk of death. By his definition, red meat is labelled as “beef, pork, or lamb,” with no mention of deer, elk, or other venison.

Someone ought to point out to Mr. Pan that the same deck-of-card-sized cut of venison has just 135 calories and less than 3 grams of fat, compared to the 183 calories and 8-plus grams of fat for a similarly sized cut of beef.* You would have thought he would have learned not to generalize somewhere in his post-graduate studies, but then maybe they don’t teach that at Harvard.

Whenever I read anything telling me what I should or shouldn’t be eating, I think about my Grandpa Draper, who lived past his 88th birthday eating three squares a day, most of which included some type of red meat. For as long as I can remember, there was a little sign above his desk that said, quite simply: “Stop worrying. You’ll never get out of this world alive.”

*Numbers from Canada’s Deer and Elk Farmer’s Information Network.

Enter The 2012 Spring Trail Cam Photo Contest to Win a $323 Camera from Bushnell!

Dave_Maccar — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:59:09 -0400

The 2012 Spring Trail Cam Photo Contest

Who says trail cams are only fun in the fall? Set yours out this spring, then send us your best photos. You could win a new Bushnell Trophy Cam HD (MSRP $323.95)!

Here's how it works. This contest will have three rounds. The first, Round I, started March 12, and closes on April 12. Round II runs from April 12 to May 12, and Round III from May 12 to June 12. We're giving away three Bushnell Trophy Cam HDs (MSRP: $323.95) in each round, one cam each to the top three entries, as chosen by our editors.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER YOUR PHOTO IN ROUND I!

Meanwhile, click through this gallery of the best photos from last year's Spring contest.

Food Fight Friday: Venison Meatloaf vs. Venison Pizza

Online Editors — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 09:41:25 -0500

by David Draper

Venison Meatloaf vs. Venison Pizza

Leave it to Wild Chef reader and frequent Food Fighter Levi Banks to come up with an innovative way to serve up some venison—on a pizza. Levi sent this picture in a while back and I’ve been dying to feature it here to see what the rest of the peanut gallery thinks about his creation. I’m putting the pizza up against another family mealtime staple--the humble meatloaf. So, which looks better to you?

David’s Venison Meatloaf

I got a hankering for some good ol’ fashioned meatloaf the other day, so I thawed a pound of ground antelope and a few Italian venison sausage links, which I stripped from their casing. Added in some fresh bread crumbs, a couple of eggs and a few spoonfuls of garlic chili sauce. Mixed everything together quickly and made free-form loaf in my new casserole dish. Baked at 350 degrees for about an hour until interior temps made it to 160 degrees. It was darn good with some mashed potatoes, but even better the next day served cold between two slices of bread slathered with mayo.

Levi’s Venison Pizza

The pizza was made on a homemade, whole wheat crust. I used a fairly tender cut of venison, sliced it up and sautéed it to get it cooked somewhat. The vegetables on the pizza were diced red onion and bell pepper. No sauce; my wife doesn't like tomato sauce on her pizza much.

Mostly mozzarella cheese, but some cheddar too. We make pizza frequently. The crust, onion, bell pepper, and cheese are pretty much constants—but the other toppings, or the type of cheese, really depend on what we have on hand. Oh, and of course cilantro to garnish. Baked at 450 degrees on a thoroughly heated pizza stone.

Don’t forget to send in your best food photos and we’ll feature them here in the coming weeks. Simply e-mail them in to fswildchef@gmail.com and we’ll get them in the que.

The 45 Best Field & Stream Reader Photos of February 2012

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:46:15 -0500

Submit your photos here!

Here is the gallery of the best reader photos from January 2012.

My Five (and a Half) Favorite Books About Food

Online Editors — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:47:58 -0500

by David Draper

Throughout the history of the written word, there are many great scenes about or relating to food—from that forbidden apple in "Genesis" to a can of peaches in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. But as a genre, good writing solely about food is a bit harder to come by. Until recently, that is.

Though the blogger-turned-book-writer fad of a few years back has slowed some, our food-obsessed world continues to crank out tomes of literature about food. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a good thing, even if you have to wade through the slush pile to find a few pearls, like these 5 ½ picks (listed in no particular order) that are among my favorite books about food.

1. The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan: Whatever your feelings are about Pollan and his punditry, you have to hold some admiration for a man who went to such great lengths to learn where his (and ultimately our) food comes from. This book arguably kick-started our national obsession about food. I have loaned and gifted several copies, mostly to vegetarians.

2. The Mindful Carnivore, by Tovar Cerulli: I think I’ve mentioned Tovar Cerulli and his thought-provoking blog before. Subtitled “A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sustenance,” this new book takes a hard look at Cerulli’s life as a reformed vegan and subsequent decision to take up hunting. The questions he asks himself about what it means to take an animal’s life are ones we should all be thinking about. Expect to hear more about and from Tovar Cerulli here soon.

3. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver: The author and her family resolve to remove themselves from the agribusiness supply line for one year, eating only the food they grow on their farm or can source locally. It’s not a story about suffering, but instead one of surprising abundance, adding an exclamation point to Kingsolver’s statement: “Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure.”

4. The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine, by Steven Rinella: Like Kingsolver, Rinella goes on a food quest of his own, though one a bit more peculiar. Using a copy of Georges Escoffier’s 1903 Le Guide Culinaire as a guidebook, Rinella plans a game feed for friends and family using ingredients ranging from antelope bladder to young pigeons. What he goes through to obtain these ingredients is both funny and fundamental to who we are as hunters and eaters.

5. The Joy of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker: Okay, so this is a cookbook, but it deserves to be on any list of the best books about food. I read The Joy of Cooking cover to cover in college and would recommend anyone serious about food do the same. But not one of the new editions. Find an older version, one that still has recipes for turtle and small game, even if you have to steal it from your mother, like I did.

5 ½. Just Before Dark, Jim Harrison: Don’t take the ½ as some sort of slight against Harrison, who is a national treasure and in my mind the greatest author alive today. Only the first 50 pages or so of this collection of essays deals with food, but the writing is so damn good, any list of best food books would be remiss to omit it. His takes a subject as simple as chicken thighs and turns it into something deliciously brilliant.

I’m always looking for good books to read, so let’s hear it from you. What are your favorite books about food?

Food Fight Friday: Seared Mallard vs. Gravlax

Sarah Smith — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 10:57:34 -0500

by David Draper

Seared Mallard Breast vs. Cured Salmon (Gravlax)

We’ve got a couple of readers going head-to-head in what looks to be a pretty epic battle. Hopefully you’re not tired of waterfowl after last week’s Food Fight, because Pat Werner presents a great looking duck dish. But he faces stiff competition from Andrew Metzger who went out of his way to make one of my favorite things--gravlax. So, without further ado, let’s get down to business.

Pat Werner’s Seared Mallard Breast

This is mallard breast seared, skin on, in a cast iron skillet. We served it with rice and beans and some vegetables my wife sautéed. I didn’t ask her what veggies because I have an irrational fear of kale. It all went great with an excellent bottle of Decoy (get it?) pinot noir.

Andrew Metzger’s Cured Salmon (Gravlax)

I could not for the life of me catch a four-pound trout to make this with, so I broke down and got a piece of salmon from the store and put it in the freezer for four days at 20 degrees below. Then I cured it with canning salt, a little brown sugar, black pepper, and dill. This is the result after 48 hours wrapped up with the curing solution. The sauce is a simple mixture dill, mustard, vinegar, and oil. Sliced thin and put on some crackers, Yum! Now I just need to do this to a wild trout.

Don’t forget to send in your best food photo to fswildchef@gmail.com and we’ll feature it here.

Food Fight Friday: Top Chef Ducks

Sarah Smith — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:40:24 -0500

by David Draper

Though I snapped both the photos featured in this week’s Food Fight, I did not cook either. Both were prepared by professional chefs in two very nice restaurants. I’m presenting them here to make a point about game meat, and duck in particular. I’m tired of people, including hunters, bad-mouthing the way wild game tastes. It’s bad enough when the uneducated public does it, but every time I hear a waterfowler say, “Duck tastes like crap,” all I can do is shake my head (to keep from shaking them).

If you’re cooking duck and it tastes bad, the only thing I can tell you is you’re doing it wrong. There’s a reason duck can be found on the menus of high-end restaurants around the world and it’s not because it tastes bad. (Spare me the lecture about the difference between domestic and wild ducks. Fact is: The taste isn’t that different.) So, to otherwise convince the non-believers, here are two dishes that reaffirmed my belief that, done well (but not well done), duck is delicious.

Mario Batali’s B&B Ristorante

A perfectly cooked, crisp-skinned roast duck leg and breast, served over braised cabbage with a light drizzle of vin cotto.

Charlie Palmer’s Aureole

A wild bitter greens and caramelized bosc pear salad with duck prosciutto, shaved foie torchon and quince vinaigrette.

Enough of my ranting; let’s vote. Though I’m not sure I could tell you which dish tasted better, I’m leaving it to you to tell me which looks better. And if you’ve got a duck dish or fish or game photo you’d like to see here, e-mail it to fswildchef@gmail.com.

Dutch Scientists Say They Can Soon Create Artificial Meat From Bovine Stem Cells

Sarah Smith — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:38:34 -0500

by David Draper

“Test tube hamburgers to be served this year.”

While it sounds like something out of The Jetsons, that recent headline from Britain’s The Telegraph is enough to make me shudder. And I hope all of you feel the same about the article’s alarming news that scientists are creating artificial meat in a laboratory.

The article quotes Professor Mark Post of the Netherlands’ Maastricht University as saying, “In October we are going to provide a proof of concept showing out of stem cells we can make a product that looks, feels, and hopefully [Author’s Note: the emphasis is mine] tastes like meat.”

The article goes on to state:

Although it is possible to extract a limited number of stem cells from cows without killing them, Prof Post said the most efficient way of taking the process forward would still involve slaughter.

He said: "Eventually my vision is that you have a limited herd of donor animals in the world that you keep in stock and that you get your cells from [sic] there."

Each animal would be able to produce about a million times more meat through the lab-based technique than through the traditional method of butchery, he added.

While I understand the continued overpopulation of the earth is creating a demand for meat that, the article says is “…forecast to double within the next 40 years,” I will never be able to fathom even trying meat that hopefully tastes like the real thing. I think I’ll stick with feeding myself from Mother Nature, eating hunter-killed meat, which not only tastes good and is good for you, but also brings back good memories of where I was when I pulled the trigger.

That’s something some scientist in a lab will never be able to replicate.

Food Fight Friday: Tenderloin Edition

Sarah Smith — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:52:33 -0500

by David Draper

Bacon-Wrapped Elk Tenderloin vs. Pan-Seared Venison Tenderloin

In today’s Food Fight, I’m attempting to unseat last week’s champion and perennial powerhouse, Steve Peifer, who consistently cranks out some great-looking dishes. This week is no exception, as he’s entered a pan-seared venison tenderloin with a great plated presentation. My photo isn’t nearly as fancy, as I shot it right after I pulled everything off the grill, but I’m hoping the addition of bacon will sway some of the swing voters.

David’s Bacon-Wrapped Elk Tenderloin

It’s a toss-up of which cut of elk I like better: the backstrap or the hanging tenderloin. But whichever is wrapped in bacon will always be my favorite. In this case, it’s the tenderloin cooked to medium-rare over a scorching hot fire and served with grilled asparagus and tinfoil taters.

Steve’s Pan-Seared Venison Tenderloin

This is pan-seared venison tenderloin, a drizzle of a red wine reduction I used to deglaze the pan, rice pilaf and steamed brussels sprouts with brown butter. It’s a shame those things are so small but my wife, kids, and I enjoyed it very much.

And don’t forget: We’d like to see you compete in our weekly Food Fight so send in your best food photos to fswildchef@gmail.com.

The 50 Best Shots From The 2011 Field & Stream Fall Trail Cam Contest

Online Editors — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 08:03:25 -0500

Here are the editors' picks for the 50 best entries in our 2011 Fall Trail Cam Photo Contest. Congrats to KSwhitetails who took first place with his "Bobcat catches a turkey in flight" shot and will receive the grand prize: a pair of Steiner 10x42 Predator Xtreme binoculars.

Congratulations to all this year's winners and thanks to everyone for the hundreds of great submissions.

You can check out the top photos from each round of the contest here:
ROUND I
ROUND II
ROUND III
ROUND IV

Cast Iron Contest: Our Dutch Oven Winner & A New Skillet Up For Grabs

Online Editors — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:40:29 -0500

by Colin Kearns

We had a bunch of terrific entries for the Dutch oven contest. As I read them today, I kept getting hungrier and hungrier. If nothing else, you all proved that the best-tasting and most memorable meals are often enjoyed outdoors.

But, there was one meal that I wanted try more than any other. And it came from Beekeeper:

About 10 years ago on a coastal feral hog hunt, I used my old Dutch oven to make one of the best gumbos I've ever made. A half hour at low tide with a castnet provided fresh white shrimp and five or six blue crabs. I also picked up and shucked out oysters from a small shell bar. Back at camp a simple broth was made from the shrimp heads and shells while I was making a nice dark roux.

Chopped onion, bell pepper, and celery that I had brought were added to the roux along with the broth. I then added the dressed and cracked blue crab. After simmering about 20 minutes, the shrimp and oysters were added. Five minutes later all was served over steaming rice and simply seasoned with salt and pepper.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d gladly take a big serving of that gumbo right now. And I just finished lunch. Beekeeper, congrats. Please email your address to fswildchef@gmail.com, and I’ll send the Lodge Dutch oven and Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook you way. I hope you all have enjoyed the tips and recipes from the Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook this week. It really is a great book. I highly recommend you add it to your cookbook collections.

But, there’s still one more chance to win a copy—as well as a brand new Lodge cast iron skillet…

To win, you’ll need to channel your inner bard. I want you to write a haiku about cast iron cooking. In case you need a refresher, a haiku is a three-line poem in which the first line has five syllables, the second has seven, and third has five. Something like this:

Biscuits and gravy,

Starving after a day’s hunt,

Stew first, then cobbler.

The best cast-iron-themed haiku wins. Deadline for entries is 5:00 p.m. (EST), Monday, Feb. 13. I’ll announce the winner the following day. Good luck.