As you may have read in other stories, I love to cook. It is not rocket science, and if you just think ahead, you can always eat good food. If you buy interesting stuff, you will eat interesting stuff. I do, and I do. Locally I am famous for my muffins. I make a dozen, and give away at least half of them. I take muffins to work, and give one to my client of the day. I am a compulsive adder, and my muffins are always chock full of interesting things. The last batch I cooked were Cinnamon muffins, with pears and blueberries, and chocolate chips. With sugary crumbles on the top. And of course, they were deeeelicious. Big fat muffins, moist and flavory. What other contractor does that? That is one reason that my clients love me. No one has ever vomited. But I wasn’t always a good cook.

In fact, the first time somebody else tried to eat my cooking, it resulted in a death. Yes, my food was fatal.

It was in Boy Scouts. Back in them days, to move from Tenderfoot rank, up the ladder to Second Class rank, you had to cook something on a campout. You had to start your own fire, and cook something on it, and then one of the senior scouts had to eat it, if you wanted to pass. In my Troop, Bill Owen was the Senior Patrol Leader, and was the fattest kid in the troop. Of course it fell to him to be the food tester. There were 3 other Tenderfoots besides me who were cooking on that campout. We all were nervous. And hungry. And we kinda knew that Bill would probably eat all of our food, and nothing would be left for us to eat. But moving up in rank required sacrifice, we knew that. I dawdled with my cooking, hoping that maybe, by the time I was done, Bill would have eaten the other 3 guys’ food, and maybe he wouldn’t be hungry enough to eat it all, and some would be left for me.

I had shopped carefully with my dad before I left for the campout. I bought a potato, some hamburger, some fresh green beans, an ear of corn, and an apple. I raided the home cupboards and brought some spices too. And some Reynolds Wrap. I had planned to cook what these days is called a Girl Scout Dinner, though in those days it was just called cooking in the coals.

Being a hyperactive boy, and in the days before Ritalin, as soon as we arrived at the campground, I pitched my tent, unrolled my sleeping bag, and quickly went out and scrounged some stones for my fire ring. I built a nice little ring of stones, so I could have a safe fire. The fire was part of the test. If you couldn’t make a fire, you wouldn’t be able to cook, and the other scouts would make great fun of you. And you would have to try again on the next campout. One shot, you had to make it all happen, or no Second Class badge.

I searched around for fire building materials. There were grapevines in the trees. Not the wimpy grapevines like we have in Texas. Big fat grapevines hanging from the trees, so stout that you could swing like Tarzan from them. And their bark was perfect tinder, so I took my Boy Scout knife, with one broken blade from playing Mumblety Peg on the last campout, and scraped me a heap of nice dry grapevine bark. Then I gathered three grades of small sticks. Teensy, little, and pencil size. Then some finger branches, and some wrist size branches, and finally some loglets, about as big around as my thigh. I chopped the big stuff up with the troops hatchet. I wanted a nice bed of coals, so anything bigger would just be in the way when it was time to cook. All 4 of we Tenderfoots started our fires at the same time.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, you got two matches from the examiner, to start your fire. If you couldn’t get your fire going with two matches, you failed. Most examiners other than Bill, gave you two wooden  safety matches, which not only always lit, but were twigs in themselves, so usually only one was necessary. When Bill finally walked over to inspect my pre-fire setup after getting the other guys started, he was impressed. My stones were fitted well, with no big gaps where coals could escape and set other things on fire. I had the tinder nicely in a fluffy pile in the middle, all dry and begging for the match. Then the sticklets in the traditional “teepee” around the tinder. I had little piles of sticks of the same size arranged artfully within reach. And the bigger stuff all prepared to add when its turn came along. That is, of course, the Boy Scout motto… Be Prepared. I have followed it almost all my life.

Bill reached in his pocket, and dragged out a book of paper matches, the cover slightly dampened from his sweat. My heart fell at my feet. Wet paper matches are almost impossible to strike. The striker strip on the book was scraped away in places from the other boys fire starting. I felt like crying. But I bravely soldiered on, and took the matches from Bill. I took the first match out, and struck it in the pack. It took 4 strikes, and then, like wet matches do, it only smoldered, making smoke and a hissing noise and a hot coal, but no flame erupted. Being an optimist from a young age, I stuck the hissing end into my tinder, where it went out. Oh poop. Bill laughed. He was not a sensitive individual.

I searched the book of matches to try to find the driest one among the 4 or 5 matches left. They  all looked sad, and were bent up from being in Bill’s damp pocket. I selected my last match of my two, and struck it twice on the striker strip, and a miracle came to pass, and it burst into flame. I stuck it quickly into the tinder, and blew on the emergent flame, and my tinder caught, and I had fire. I carefully built it up, and soon had a merry fire going. So did the other boys. They got out their frying pans and stuff, and got to cooking. I kept adding wood, so I would get a nice bed of hot coals.

Meanwhile, I took out the apple, and quartered it, and cut away the seed part. I sprinkled the pieces with cinnamon, and brown sugar, and a pat of butter, and wrapped it up tightly in foil. Then I cut the corn cob in 3 parts, and the green beans in half, and cut the potato in small pieces. I stuck it all, along with a blob of ground beef, into a large piece of foil. I salted and peppered the beef and taters. I added the foil wrapped apple, and folded the foil around it all, with folded seams and ends. Then a second wrapping of foil, carefully folded together so the steam would not escape. By then, my coals were ready, and I scraped a hole, and stuck my foil package in it, and covered it all up with the hot coals. and I sat and waited.

I watched the other boys, as they fried up hamburgers and things. They were not experienced cooks, and much of their food was slightly burned. Too hot of a fire. Bill ate it all anyway. All of the three boys food. All of it. He was not picky. I started thinking maybe I would eat something tonight. Surely he would be full. It was taking some time to cook in the coals. Bill was standing around, asking me if it was ready yet. Over and over.

Finally I judged it done, and scraped the coals away, and took out my pack of food. I spread out the first wrap of foil, and the smell was heavenly. Bill came closer. I opened up the inner wrap of foil, and it looked and smelled wonderful. The ground beef was juicy and perfectly done. The beans were nice and dark green, and the potato pieces were soft. The corn looked yummy. I reached in, and opened the foil around the apple, and it was beautiful and smelled like apple pie. Bill was salivating. I was too.

Just as Bill was sitting down to chow down, a huge horsefly flew up, and landed on my apple, and keeled over dead. Bill jumped up, and I failed my cooking test because he wouldn’t eat it. I picked the horsefly off the apple after Bill left, and had myself a delicious repast right there in the woods.

I did the same thing the next campout, and there was a different senior scout, who took some modest bites and passed me on my Tendefrfoot test, and there was some left for me. And he had wooden matches, and I only used one. But it took me a while to live down the reputation as the scout that cooked so bad, that it killed a horsefly.

It was the heat of the apple that killed the fly.

And hey, flies are not an endangered species anyway.

I can cook anything. <3