Photo from Chip Schweiger's Cowboy Lifestyle, used with permission Carl Clancy in the upcoming historical fiction Cat's Cafe lived in the family chuck wagon in the hills above Eagle Rock. He became quite a good cook for himself, and for the seductive Fannie Smiles. Carl Clancy in Cat’s Café grew up as the youngest member… Continue reading Cowboy cooking, chuckwagon style
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Cat’s Cafe, Ch. 3 Notes
Updated July, 2022 Chapter Three ~ Railroads and fortunes The Utah Northern Railroad (UNR) was sold to the Union Pacific (UP) in a bankruptcy sale on April 3, 1878 but, as early as November of 1877, the UP had already started construction of a new line from Franklin, Idaho, the northern terminal of the UNR… Continue reading Cat’s Cafe, Ch. 3 Notes
Cat’s Cafe, Ch. 1 Notes
Updated July, 2022 Chapter One ~ Taylor's Crossing and Eagle Rock The Snake River, running first west and then south out of the Teton Mountain range, carved deep channels through numerous ridges of the ancient lava beds of the Idaho high desert before reaching an area near Pocatello where it veered west across the southern… Continue reading Cat’s Cafe, Ch. 1 Notes
Cat’s Cafe, Author’s Note
Updated July, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwe8F_AhLY0 Okay, so I never will actually enjoy country or country western music. But ... here's a fun intro to cowboy twang my "Dear Editor" found to kick off my Author's Note about our dialect choices for the Eagle Rock Trilogy. Many of the characters in our created Eagle Rock sound a… Continue reading Cat’s Cafe, Author’s Note
Pioneer Food, part one
Image by Jose Antonio Alba from Pixabay Corn+Bread=Sturdy, satisfying survival food Contemporary cookbooks offer all sorts of entertaining and delicious sounding recipes for early American cooking, cowboy cooking, and pioneer cooking. But cooking in the late-1800s American West was really all about survival, not taste and variety. According to Richard Erodos in Saloons of the… Continue reading Pioneer Food, part one
Saloons in the Old West ~ Beer moves west
Known by such colorful names as “John Barleycorn, purge, hop juice, calobogus, wobbly pop, mancation, let’s mosey, laughing water, mad dog, Jesus juice, pig’s ear, [and] strike-me-dead,” according to NotesFromTheFrontier.com, most of the beer in the late 1870s was a dark, tepid, low-quality, low-hop, home brew that was quick to go flat. Eventually, keg beer… Continue reading Saloons in the Old West ~ Beer moves west
Saloons in the Old West ~ Whiskey and Women
Image from LegendsofAmerica.com In Cat’s Cafe, two saloons compete for hard-drinking rail workers, cowboys, bullwhackers, and others in Eagle Rock who love a stiff drink as oftenas they can afford it. Pott’s Saloon, supported by the corrupt town boss, sells cheap, bad tasting beer and, for what passes as whiskey, a house blend of grains… Continue reading Saloons in the Old West ~ Whiskey and Women
Saloons in the Old West ~ Mirrors and Mahogany?
Patrick’s Saloon in Cat’s Cafe wasn't the highly polished, rich mahogany, mirrored saloon depicted in film and television westerns -- at least not in the beginning. Western towns in the 1860s and '70s were thrown up faster than they could be properly built. Only a few buildings were built to last. Most began as tent… Continue reading Saloons in the Old West ~ Mirrors and Mahogany?