Braised Elk Ribs

I was given some antelope ribs from Broken Arrow Ranch for Christmas. My idea was to braise them as short ribs, employing a braising liquid to complement what I assumed to be a wild flavor. Fortunately, one of my hunting companions on a recent elk hunt liberated some elk ribs from the home freezer of one of our companions. I decided rather than risking the antelope on an untried liquid, experimenting on the elk ribs would be a good idea. So after some trial and error, here is the result. The elk ribs were terrific and I can’t wait to do the antelope with this same recipe.

Braised Elk Ribs

There was no theft involved in the liberation of the elk ribs. My companion assured me we had permission to “take some meat from Ned’s freezer.” Ned had stayed in the high-mountain elk camp. We stopped on our return to do a sleepover at his home where we also enjoyed a wonderful dinner. It seemed only fitting that we test his wine cellar during our stay. He would have expected no less.

How to Make Stock - Game Meat & Wild Birds

Good homemade stock has become the foundation of my kitchen. I developed this technique over many years but especially in last months. My freezer is full of beautiful stock, elk stock, pheasant stock, chicken stock, beef stock.

Crock Pot Venison Round Roast

This recipe is simple, easy and takes little time to prepare. There follows, however, a digression into a visit to Brown Hollow and a brief description of Thanks giving at my house. If you would like, skip to the recipe.

BROWN HOLLOW, Early Winter
On the drive to Brown Hollow after Thanksgiving, the trees are bare. On the eastern slopes there is a light cover of snow on the forest floor. It is a world of sepias, umbers, some burnt sienna. The sun has burned the snow off the western slopes. Below the grey sky it is a scene worthy of Andrew Wyeth. We had hoped the snow would still be on the ground at Brown Hollow but it was gone when we got to the gate.



I had intended to burn some of the cedars downed during the summer while clearing a glade. Snow on the ground would prevent the fire from spreading into the woods. No chance of the fire spreading on this day: the snow had changed to a cold slow rain with a little ice in it. In spite of the wet, some of the cedar piles, the ones that had gone brown, burned.

Without the hunters of two weeks back, the woods were silent. Maybe it is a derangement to enjoy being out in a cold drizzle with no purpose other than to enjoy the silence of the Ozark winter.

Bacon-Wrapped Venison Fillets

THE FIRST MORNING - DEER SEASON 2008

The first morning of the season was cold and wet. A chill wind came from the northwest. Nephew John and I went down from the Ridge Road and worked our way into the upper part of the hollow. We came to old structural pieces of stone and concrete but little else to suggest that this had been a home. An area once open was now spotted with small cedars but some open areas of deep grass. The bucks had been rubbing their antlers on saplings, shredding the bark while strengthening their necks for the fights to come over the does. There was one scrape started, a signpost in the mating ritual. John and I can converse about deer by looking together at sign and not talking. We sat for a short time but we weren’t very serious about killing an animal, which we would have to drag a mile or more. They would have hot coffee at deer camp -- and stories, though no deer.

How to Cook Venison Loin at Deer Camp

There is no better way to prepare venison than this. It takes a campfire burned down to hot coals, a grill and a freshly killed deer. When our hunters are coming back into camp on the first morning, there is invariably at least one deer. We always immediately field dress the animal where it fell. It is brought to camp hung, skinned and boned.

As soon as the deer is skinned, the loins (sometimes called backstraps) are taken off. One or both of them, depending on the number and appetite of the hunters, will be prepared as follows:

Deer Camp Dutch Oven Stew

Each season, my necessary things are stacked by the front door, awaiting my nephew who will pick me up at 4 a.m. as he has done each year now for more than twenty years.

The same Winchester model 70 that I have used now for more than 40 seasons (for you gun aficionados, it is a pre-1964), a sharp Buck knife in a sheath, cartridges, insulated coveralls, some pocket hand warmers, jerky, insulated boots, gloves, a down-filled parka, a blaze orange hat and vest -- and a Dutch oven filled with some hearty meal for the people down at the Brown Hollow deer camp.

The meal varies year to year. Venison chili, a game gumbo, one year chicken and noodles. All have been well received as a midday meal as the hunters make their way back into camp. I make the stew the day before opening day, let it cool, place in refrigerator, then take it to deer camp and warm it over the coals from the all-night campfire either by hanging on a rack or placing on a grill.

The Neighbors

The second time we were on the property – the first was a tour with a real estate agent –we took the old Jeep onto the upper ridge which has since been cleared and planted for wildlife. It was autumn, the day crisp and bright in the early afternoon. We followed a deeply trenched road into a sink hole and even though the jeep was raised, it quickly became high-centered on the mud bottom. When the drive to reverse wheel spinning proved futile, we abandoned the vehicle, waded out and stared at it. Presently Jim, my son, said he heard a truck and so we headed to the sound.



A mile later at a fork in the road, we saw a gate, a barn, and beyond, a man leaning against a tractor. He watched as we came through the gate. He was tall, gaunt, dressed in faded and worn blue denim overalls. The tractor on which he leaned had weeds growing around its wheels, the tires gone flat. Its paint had long since given way to rust.

He was as weathered as the tractor. Behind him was a flatbed truck without side rails. On its wooden bed there were many items, worn, but of use to anyone working a place like this with a broad and undulating pasture on which grazed Hereford cattle – some cows but mostly steers, altogether about fifteen animals not including the bull confined to a wooden fenced pen beside the barn.

We shook hands as introductions were exchanged. “We are looking at the place up above, thinking we might buy it,” I said. “But right now, we’re stuck and hoping you might be able to help.”

Bison Steaks with Wine Sauce

This recipe is to help get in the mood for the coming deer season. We just enjoyed this prepared with buffalo (OK, bison) steaks but it is terrific with venison, elk, or any other large game meat.

A Place Called Brown Hollow

As men are called to the sea, the mountains, the great spaces of the American West, throughout my life, the military, college, a professional career, wandering and travel, the Missouri woodlands of my childhood have called me home. The place of my childhood is now gone, subdivided beyond recognition. Through great good fortune a substitute was found -- a place known as Brown Hollow.

It is not a place of the imagination, although it lends itself to great imagining, but an actual part of the Ozark mountains with a vast repository of life, topography, springs and streams. The hunting tradition of my family, spanning now three generations of living hunters continues there.



But Brown Hollow is much more than hunting. There are fish in the clear river, swimming, unlimited photo ops, camping, and once a year a great gathering featuring a bluegrass band. And cooking.

The ethics of hunting, at least the ethics practiced and passed on in my family, require respect for the life taken, and that respect requires its proper preparation, cooking and eating, actually feasting.

This space will be used to report on Brown Hollow in its many aspects.

This is autumn and the hunters moon is in the sky. These tales of Brown Hollow will follow the seasons. They will include some thoughts on preparation, gear, techniques, survival and, yes, most important how to eat the bounty. The freezer already contains the result of one successful pheasant hunt (from south Dakota not Brown Hollow, no promise of strict geographic boundaries). But our whitetail hunt for bow is going on now and rifle season is soon to start.

So the installments to follow will focus on venison, how to find it, kill it, cook it, and, most importantly, eat it. So if you have been wondering what this is about, wonder no more, it is about how to cook game linked to the traditions of my family.

More to come.

Welcome to Brown Hollow!

In our family the primary purpose of each hunting trip was to come home with a good story. Almost equal was the need to come back with something to eat, preferably tasty.

Our home was on a hillside above a creek surrounded on three sides by the woods that covered the western third of the 65 acre family farm. My older brother carried my deceased father's 1897 Winchester 12 gauge shotgun and I a single shot .22 J.C. Higgins. Our bounty was mostly rabbits, squirrels and sometimes quail. In the summer we worked the creek for sun perch, catfish, frogs, crawfish and, on rare occasion turtle -- big snappers that we knew could take your finger with one bite.

And yes we came home with stories now retold, refined and improved into that form of immortality known as 'family legend'.