Amazing Pocket Survival Kit

~ ‘A pocket survival kit that really could save your life!’

One of the many decisions a traveller must make when they are preparing their packing list, is what items to include for those unexpected “what if” moments.

What if the car breaks down? What if you are stuck or stranded in an inaccessible part of the wilderness? What if you twist an ankle or worse? What if…? You get the idea.

So the next question then is, What emergency items can you carry with you, that will not be too bulky, heavy, and impractical?

Thankfully, Doug Ritter has put together an emergency kit that is light, compact, and very practical, and based on years of experience. Doug is the Executive Director of the non profit Equipped to Survive Foundation, and an internationally acknowledged authority on survival equipment and practical survival techniques.

His innovative product reviews, evaluations and articles have helped to revolutionize some aspects of survival equipment design and production and allow consumers to make fully informed decisions about their own investment in survival – decisions with potentially life and death importance.

After researching numerous emergency survival kits, I have decided to offer Doug Ritter's Pocket Survival Kit through my Compleat Traveller Store. As you will see by the brief review excerpts reproduced below (and the many other on the Amazon site), Doug Ritter’s Kit comes highly recommended by many purchasers of this incredible, pocket sized survival pack. Let’s take a look at the Kits features and contents.

Product Features

The Pocket Survival Pak contains a collection of survival tools for when you find yourself abandoned, stranded, or lost in the outdoors. Features include gear repair supplies; fishing supplies; sewing supplies; mini-duct tape; 20mm, liquid filled compass; and waterproof survival instructions. The Kit’s compact size and weight (just 3.9 oz., and 4" x 5" x 0.652") make it perfect for backpackers, hunters, pilots, snow-mobilers, hikers, or anyone who enjoys the great outdoors.

Product Description

The Kit contains the following items: Signal Mirror, Rescue Flash; Spark-Lite Fire Starter; Tinder Quick Fire starters; Whistle, Rescue Howler; Waterproof Survival Instructions; Duct Tape, 2" x 26"; Scalpel with Handle, Sterile, Disposable, #22 Blade; Compass, Button, Liquid Filled; Aluminum Foil, Heavy Duty, 3 Sq. Ft.; Waterproof Paper; Fresnel Magnifier; Safety Wire, Stainless Steel, (6 ft of 0.020"); Sewing Thread, Bobbin #69, Nylon; Nylon Cord, #18, Braided, (10 ft. 100lb test); Sewing Needle, #18, Chenille; Fish Hooks, #10; Split Shot, Lead B; Snap Swivel, Size 12; Pencil; Pocket Survival Pak Contents List; and Safety Pins

Warning: Due to the inclusion of numerous proscribed travel items in this emergency kit, do not attempt to transport the kit in your ‘carry on’ luggage if you are planning to fly to your destination. It will almost certainly be removed and disposed of by security personnel.

Clearly, the above kit can’t hold everything you might possibly want or need in every emergency, but based on numerous reviews on Amazon, this handy emergency kit is highly regarded, and very popular. I would recommend you add a small torch, a waterproof poncho, and a Leatherman multi-tool to your luggage, but beyond that, you should not need much more for general outdoor travel.

Amazon Customer Reviews

I've been buying and building and updating emergency preparedness kits for over fifteen years now and this is a great package. Doug Ritter's put together a real wealth of stuff in a small package and it's all top notch materials. ~ By K. Miller (Arlington, VA USA)

This kit is perfect. Small enough to fit in your pocket, yet everything you need if your outdoor trip takes a turn for the worse. Would highly recommend, and I will buy more. Everything is very high quality, nothing looks or feels cheap. ~ By Ghostrider (Az.)

I found the Adventure Medical Kit to be one of the lightest, most compact kits on the market. ~ By J. Bowe (New York)

Doug Ritter and his foundation, Equipped to Survive, has come up with a very economic method to equip yourself and your family with an emergency kit. It is small enough to carry unnoticed in a pocket, yet fully functional. ~ By T. Hassler

You can read the full reviews and many others, via the Amazon.Com website…

Sunday Supplement #2

~ Say, "Please": Reading this story will remind you of why your mother always encouraged you as a child to say, "Please".

A Canadian traveller insisting on courtesy from a member of the Customs and Border Protection guards was pepper sprayed and held in custody for three hours.

His only sin — asking the border guard to say “please” when he was asked to turn his car off during a search.

“I refused to turn off the car until he said please. He didn’t. And he has the gun, I guess, so he sprayed me,” said Desiderio Fortunato, who frequently crosses the border to visit his second home in the state of Washington. “Is that illegal in the United States, asking an officer to be polite?”

Mr. Fortunato said after he was sprayed he was forcefully taken into custody by several officers. He was held for three hours before he was released without being allowed entry into the United States. Mr. Fortunato says he was dismissed with a warning to be more cooperative in the future. Read more here...

Road Trip USA. Here's something a bit different. Two guys drive across America (from San Francisco to Washington, DC) with a camera mounted inside their car set to take photographs every 10 seconds. The resulting time-lapse video takes you speeding across California, Nevada, Colorado, Missouri, Tennessee and into Washington, D.C., to the music of Michael Nyman's "An Eye for Optical Theory" (personally I would have preferred 'Born To Be Wild' by Steppenwolf, but hey, it's their road trip).

I would have also liked a few titles so viewers could get some idea of where exactly we are on the route, but it makes interesting viewing just the same. The video has been edited down from the original nine minutes running time to 4:36.

You can see a map of the exact route here...

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, enjoy the rest of the weekend.

The Week That Was #12

Welcome to my weekly collection of the Odd, the Useful, and the often Bizarre.

The Odd: ‘Yorkshire Airlines’. What with all the fuss about the way airlines are treating their passengers lately, it is good to see ‘Yorkshire Airlines’ doing the right thing by their clients, and working hard to keep them happy.

The Useful: Museum Day, Sept. 26, 2009. Did you know that in America, Saturday, September 26, 2009 is Museum Day? This means locals and visitors alike get Free Admission to hundreds of museums and "cultural venues" across every state in the Union. The Smithsonian has made it easy to find out which museums are taking part (yes, I know, all of them are), and where they are located.

You can go to its website to download a museum card, and search through a database of museums organised on a state by state basis. These include many well-known institutions like New York’s excellent Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and the New York Transit Museum, in Brooklyn, both of which I visited during my stay in 2008.

Buy the way, if the museum you wish to visit is normally closed on a Saturday, check with them to see if there will be free entry on Sunday 27th, instead. Again, you can use the Smithsonian site to find out if your local museum is thus affected. Thanks to Rick Seaney for this one.

The Bizarre: Passenger fixes faulty airliner. Holidaymakers avoided a long delay to their flight home from the tiny Spanish island of Menorca, when a passenger fixed a mechanical problem with their plane. Having been told to expect an eight-hour wait while an engineer was flown out from the UK, one passenger identified himself as a qualified aircraft engineer and offered to try and remedy the fault. After the airline checked the mans qualifications, the engineer was able to fix the problem, and the plane landed in Glasgow only 35 minutes late. The unnamed engineer received a round of applause from other passengers for his efforts.

But would you want to stay on a plane, knowing that one of the passengers had fixed a mechanical problem? We’ll leave the last word to fellow passenger Keith Lomax, who said, “It was reassuring to know the person who had fixed it was still on the aeroplane.” Fair enough then. Read more here…

Friday Photo #10: Remembering September 11, 2001

Click image to view full size

St Pauls Church, New York City

Late afternoon sun casts long shadows across the gravestones of St. Paul’s Chapel, New York, while in the background, dust rises from the site of the former twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Located on Church Street between Fulton and Vesey Streets, the Chapel is opposite the east side of the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. It is the oldest surviving church building in the city, and indeed the oldest public building in continuous use in New York City.

The Chapel survived the Great New York City Fire of 1776 when a quarter of New York City (then the area around Wall Street) burned following the British capture of the city in the American Revolutionary War.

St Paul’s Chapel was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960. Its status as such was further strengthened after the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, when miraculously the Chapel survived without so much as a broken window.

The Chapel was turned into a makeshift memorial shrine following the September 11 attacks, and served as a place of rest and refuge for recovery workers at the WTC site. For eight months, hundreds of volunteers worked 12 hour shifts around the clock, serving meals, making beds, counselling and praying with fire fighters, construction workers, police and others. Massage therapists, chiropractors, podiatrists and musicians also tended to their needs.

I spent a several hours at the Chapel over the course of two or three visits, and was intensely moved by the many artefacts, exhibits and audio-video displays that are permanently located inside the building.

The first one when entering is "Healing Hearts and Minds", which consists of a policeman's uniform covered with police and fire fighter patches sent from all over the country, and from around the world. The most visible is the "Thread Project", which consists of several banners, each of a different colour, and woven from different locations from around the globe, hung from the upper level over the pews. There is much to see and reflect on at St Paul’s Chapel, and I highly recommend a visit there during your New York stay.

As you might imagine there are many online resources and sites memorialising the attacks of September 11, 2001. Make your first stop the website of St Paul's Chapel itself, which has a wonderful audio/visual selection of many of the artefacts on view in the Chapel. Another excellent online location is the Make History – National September 11 Memorial and Museum site.

Visit the St Paul’s Chapel website here…

Thanks to Wikipedia for the background information…

Five Road Trip Planning Commandments

~ By Tara Waechter

Many people think that all it takes for successful road trip planning is a couple of good maps or a GPS system, a car, and the urge to hit the road.

Wrong!

Without taking the road trip planning steps necessary, you could find yourself in a world of hurt when you were expecting a good time.

Obeying these five commandments will ensure that not only is your road trip trouble-free, but it's also truly fun!

The Five Commandments of Great Road Trip Planning:

Commandment One

Thou shalt not bring the wrong passengers

It seems like a no-brainer, but being a part of the road trip planning world, all I ever hear about are disasters where someone goes on a road trip with someone they barely know, or someone they know well and also know they argue with constantly, or a family member that's involved in an ongoing feud.

Before you select a destination or buy a guidebook or do a search for hotels online, figure out who you're going to bring. If you don't have a choice (it's a family or couples trip) do two things: 1) have everyone participate in selecting the destination so everyone's enthusiastic and 2) sort out any ongoing feuds or other arguments before you go. Trust me, those underlying problems are going to pop up like some demented jack-in-the-box when you're cooped up in a car together every day, and if everyone's not psyched about the destination, it will affect the trip.

Have a choice about who to bring? Select someone you know well enough - not that acquaintance from work or that neighbour you chat with occasionally. Even if you're bringing your best friend, make sure that everything is great between you (or sit down and have it out ahead of time).

Commandment Two

Thou shall avoid the Hellish Haul at all costs

A Hellish Haul is when you try to get to your destination as fast as possible, spending six or more hours behind the wheel every day. You may end up having more time at your destination, but the journey itself will simply be physical, emotional, and psychological torture. Does that sound like a vacation to you?

How to avoid a hellish haul? There are a lot of articles on my website on how to plan a road trip without ending up on a haul, but to simplify drastically: don't pick a destination that's too far away. You'll want to spend no more than four and a half hours behind the wheel every day. If you can't get there with that much driving per day and have time to enjoy your destination, either select a closer destination that appeals or fly there and skip taking a road trip this time.

Commandment Three

Thou shall Achieve Universal Destination Agreement

One pointer I made earlier about selecting a destination everyone is interested in for a family trip also applies to all road trips. You and your travel companion(s) absolutely must agree on the destination, and I'm not talking about a lukewarm agreement here. I'm talking psyched!

How do you do this? Sit down with everyone going on the trip and have everyone vote on various destinations (that are achievable without a Hellish Haul) until you find somewhere that everyone really wants to go. Now you'll have a group of really happy people and you'll need that when you get lost, or if a tire blows, or when anything goes wrong. When you're excited to go somewhere, those things really don't bother you as much (unless they just keep happening and ruin your trip, but that won't happen if you've put some time into some comprehensive road trip planning).

Commandment Four

Thou shalt not ignore thy car

An oil change is just not going to do it. Sorry! Take the time to have your car checked out thoroughly. Must-check items include:

• Tires (replace any old tires now, not on the road), alignment, rotation.

• Top off all fluids and have oil changed.

• Have belts and hoses as well as the brakes checked.

• Get new air filter (unless you just had it replaced).

• Check your manual. In it you will find a maintenance schedule for your car. Have all maintenance items taken care of before you go - getting it done on the road will not only potentially ruin your trip, you'll also be at the mercy of the garage that ends up holding your car hostage (you'll have zero leverage).

Also, make sure to get a roadside emergency kit and pack it along with other items you might need in case of a breakdown including extra water, snacks, and a blanket. I highly recommend you get a AAA membership* - not only for their great roadside assistance program, but also for the many travel discounts available through membership.

Commandment Five

Thou shall remember to pack everything you will need

Sure, you can get things on the road. Do you really want to spend your vacation, driving around trying to find these things, though? Wouldn't it be easier if you just had them along in the first place? It's not like you're flying and you're limited to one bag and one carry-on!

Start a packing list at least two weeks before your trip. Keep the list handy to you with a pen nearby. Every time you think of something you'll need, write it down. Look up general packing lists and packing tips online to help you remember everything. By the time you've got your suitcase out and you're ready to pack, you'll be in much better shape than anyone who didn't take the time to create a list and it will be highly unlikely that you'll forget something. What's even better, you won't find yourself an hour or two down the road experiencing that uh-oh feeling you get when you realize you forgot something important.

These road trip planning commandments will transform your vacation from one where everything goes wrong to one where everything (within reason) goes right and you can relax and have a wonderful time!

*AAA (American Automobile Association) Membership. In Australia you could join the Royal Automobile Association (RAA), or the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV), and other state based associations. Many countries have similar national automobile associations providing roadside assistance to travellers in need.

Tara Waechter owns http://www.planning-fun-road-trips.com - a website that covers every aspect of road trip planning including mapping tips, packing lists, road trip games and songs, trip ideas, recipes, tools, and in-depth articles. Tools offered include a road trip budget calculator and a printable checklist of to-do's to handle before you depart on your trip.

Tara has travelled extensively in the United States as well as abroad, and has learned the knowledge she passes on in her website through the "School of Hard Knocks". She is also an office manager and meeting and event planner. She resides in Cary, North Carolina with her husband, Ash.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tara_Waechter

Image: Lost Highway #3

Photo: Jim Lesses

Travel – Getting the Full Experience

~ My recent review of The Texas Cowboy Cookbook prompted a friend to ask: Why on earth is a travel blog reviewing a cookbook? And a Texas cowboy cookbook at that?

So today I thought I would explain my rationale for reviewing the cookbook (and other publications), in the hope that it will encourage readers and prospective travellers to expand their reading list and broaden their research before they hit the road.

For me, travel is not only about ancient monuments, famous landmarks, lying around on the beach getting sunburnt, or taking yet another golden sunset photograph. It is also about all those other things that go into making travel experiences truly memorable and unique.

Things like trying to gain insight into the culture and history of the countries I pass through. It’s about digging deeper into the morés and traditions of the people that make these countries what they are. And it’s about immersing myself in the travel experience, so that I can hopefully come away from my latest journeying with a deeper understanding of the world and the peoples that inhabit it.

I am a firm believer that you don’t have to actually be travelling to immerse yourself in the travel experience. The travel experience for me begins with research, with reading a wide range of books about the countries I plan to visit. With gaining a basic understanding of the language of the people so I can deepen the connection with them as I interact with them on a daily basis.

Most people, when preparing for a major journey, confine their ‘research’ to general country guides or location specific guides like the one for New York City previously reviewed on this site (Knopf MapGuide: New York), or Road Trip USA (Road Trip USA). As good as they are, these guides, by their very nature, cannot provide you with the deep background insight into a nation you get from reading good travelogues, biographies of important national figures, and the histories of the people, places, and nations you are planning to visit.

Hence my recent review of Robb Walsh’s 2007 publication, The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, Bill Bryson’s Down Under, A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins, and Bypass by Michael McGirr – to name just some of my book reviews.

Actually, I have also wanted to include reviews of feature films, documentaries, and television series on this blog as well, but I just haven’t had the time to devote to this. I believe there are many films and TV programs that help provide another level of insight into the travel experience. For instance, the brilliant documentaries of Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The War, etc), the travel adventures of Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor (The Long Way Round, and Long Way Down), and the journeys of Michael Palin (Sahara, Himalaya, and Full Circle, etc), all come to mind.

Then there are great feature films like those of the director Werner Hertzog, whose wonderful films, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, and Fitzcarraldo fuse drama, stunning cinematography and magnificent landscapes to transport you to a world that is both frightening and exhilarating at the same time. Or the more recent Tulpan, by Sergei Dvortsevoy. This film, which won the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008, looks at the fast disappearing world of nomadic sheep herders in Kazakhstan, and combines comedy, drama, and documentary style film making to show us a landscape that few city dwelling westerners (or ‘easterners’ for that matter), will ever get to see.

In fact, just writing this entry has prompted me to start putting aside some time to watch these movies, and television programs and write reviews of them. So look out for these in the near future.

I hope this brief rationale for my reviewing policies also prompts you to broaden your research parameters, and gets you thinking ‘outside the box’ about ways you too can get the full experience out of your travels.

NOTE: To see a full list of all the books reviewed on The Compleat Traveller, click on the ‘In Review’ label below.

Image courtesy of Gregor Books…

Sunday Supplement 01

~ Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert seems to be experiencing problems with his luggage, in this comedy routine recorded from an unnamed Australian television broadcast. The clip is from YouTube.

- - o 0 o - -

And then there is David Holmes, who works for America's Southwest Airlines. David has achieved fame (as only the internet and YouTube can bestow it), as a rapping flight attendant who knows exactly how to get his passengers to pay attention to the pre-flight announcement that all airlines include at takeoff.

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, enjoy the rest of the weekend.

And a Happy Father's Day to everyone celebrating this day in Australia and elsewhere.

The Week That Was #11

Welcome to my weekly collection of The Odd, The Useful, and The Downright Bizarre.

The Odd: First up, I’m posting a video for you to watch, but only if you promise never to do what you are about to see on your next international flight.

Promise? Ok, then. Now you can watch it:



The Useful: 5 secrets for avoiding sky-high cell phone bills. Christopher Elliott, over at Consumer Traveller writes about ways to avoid exorbitant cell phone bills while you are travelling, and recounts one example of Verizon greed when a traveller returned home from vacation to a staggering $8,000 cell phone debt. Among the strategies Elliott suggests for keeping your cell phone costs under control are these: Buy another phone in the country you are visiting; Get a plan that specifically includes overseas calls at favourable rates; Go VOIP and use services such as Skype; Swap cards — that is, swap out the SIM cards on your phone with a local national card; and finally, if all else fails, turn your phone off or better still, leave it at home. Read more here…

The Downright Bizarre: "Putpockets" give a little extra cash. How’s this for a weird promotional idea? A British broadband provider is paying reformed pickpockets to surreptitiously slip money into the pockets of unsuspecting Londoners. Instead of ‘pickpockets’ the firm has coined the word, putpockets, because the former thieves now give people money instead of steal it from them. "It feels good to give something back for a change -- and Britons certainly need it in the current economic climate," said Chris Fitch, a former pickpocket who now heads TalkTalk's putpocketing initiative. Fagan would be rolling over in his grave! Read more here…

Friday Photo #9: Cheeky Monkey

Click image to view larger size…

One of the first places I visited on my return to London in March 2008 (after an absence of over 30 years), was London’s Natural History Museum in Kensington.

Originating from collections within the British Museum, the landmark Alfred Waterhouse building was built and opened by 1881. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections: Botany, Entomology, Mineralogy, Palaeontology and Zoology. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, and include specimens collected by Charles Darwin.

The foundation of the collection was that of the Ulster doctor Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753). Sloane's collection, which included dried plants, and animal and human skeletons, was initially housed in Montague House in Bloomsbury in 1756, which was the home of the British Museum.

Walking through the building taking in the many displays, my attention was captured by the sight of hundreds of carved monkeys climbing the internal walls and support structures of this magnificent building. Like the gargoyles which were the subject of a previous Friday Photo (Friday Photo #4: London Gargoyle), these monkeys and other decorations represent an age when workmanship and beauty were greatly prized and appreciated.

There is much to see and appreciate in the Natural History Museum, and not all of it is behind glass cases. The next time you visit this building, take the time to look around and see how many of these cheeky monkeys adorn the main entry hall, and marvel at the skilful hands that created these objects of delight and splendor.

Note: visible in the photograph are at least 18 similar monkeys on the curved column on the far wall to the left of the monkey shown here in close-up. Presumably someone knows the exact number of monkeys

Visit the Natural History Museum here…

Photograph: Cheeky Monkey, by Jim Lesses

Location: Natural History Museum, London, England

With thanks to Wikipedia for the background information on the Museum

Travel In The Year 2030

~ I am sitting here thinking about what the travel experience might be like in the year 2030.

Why?

Because last night I went and visited my niece and her partner and their two day ‘old’ son for the first time, and marvelled once again at that incredible miracle of life that is a newborn child. And today, I woke up thinking about what the travel experience might be like in the year 2030 – when their child is 21.

A few lucky (read, wealthy) people, might get to enjoy brief ‘off world’ flights that circle the earth for several days at a time. The really adventurous ‘off world’ passengers might even get to indulge in a space walk during these trips (for an extra fee of course), but I imagine these types of flights won’t involve much more than this. Not that this wouldn’t be exciting enough!

However, I suspect that for the rest of us, travel will still be much the same as it is today, with travellers jetting off to far flung destinations around the world, all looking for that ultimate, intimate travel experience.

Most of the world’s top destinations will still be much as they are now. There will almost certainly be a few more skyscrapers in New York City; more side walk cafés in Paris; and more tourists trying to get the ultimate sunset photograph of Uluru (Ayers Rock). I also imagine that some of the more inaccessible places on the planet, those which currently only see a few thousand visitors a year, will become much easier to reach and enjoy.

Inevitably though, something will be lost along the way.

If the planet continues to warm, some locations may become too unpleasant to visit. Others, too difficult, and still more, too dangerous – which means safety and security will continue to be a major issue (I don’t see a conflict free planet on the horizon any time soon). Oh, and airlines will continue to lose our luggage in transit, and serve up barely palatable in-flight meals!

For myself, I hope I will still be around in 2030, and travelling as much as someone in their 80s can be expected to. Who knows, my 21 year old great nephew might even want to accompany me on a trip as a chaperone. Then again…

Image courtesy of SonnyRadio.Com…

Spring Has Sprung, Down Under

~ It is one of those quirks of nature that while the northern hemisphere enjoys summer, the southern hemisphere rugs up for winter. And so it is, that the first days of September herald the start of spring in Australia, while Europe and North America start moving into autumn (or fall, as our American cousins like to say).

And so it is too, that the more the months, weeks, and days tick inexorably by, the more I seem to have travel on my mind. Especially now that spring is in the air.

I am still not much nearer to finalising my travel plans for next year. Maybe it’s because I’m a Libran! Or maybe it’s because I’ve never been good at making quick or snap decisions that have the potential for major impact on my life. Personally, I hate to blame my procrastination and constant vacillating on a star sign. That’s too easy, and quite frankly a cop out. Still, all these things are plaguing my thoughts today as I look at the calendar and tick off the days in the lead up to April 2010.

One of the downsides of being a solo traveller, is that you have no-one to share the planning and decision making process with. Sure, you can discuss and mull over the various options available to you with family and friends, but there’s only so much you can expect from those closest to you.

Putting myself in their shoes, I think I would soon tire of the constant discussions revolving around which destination to visit first.

“Yes, Jim,” I can feel them thinking, “It’s all very well us sitting around planning your holiday with you, but while you are lazing on the sandy beaches of some Greek island, sipping coffee on the Champs-Élysées, or spending weeks driving the byways of America, we are going to be stuck here in dear old Adelaide!”

So, ultimately, you have to make all the decisions on your own.

As April draws nearer, I will start to solidify some of the ideas rolling around in my head. On any given day they can and do change constantly, but currently my thinking is thus: fly directly to Athens, Greece, and spend the first month or so on Ikaria (see Friday Photo #7: My Island Home, Ikaria, Greece). Then travel overland to one of several possible destinations (Italy, France, Spain or England). Since I am currently learning a smattering of Spanish (see Spanish is The Loving Tongue), it makes sense to visit Spain in order to reinforce the Spanish I’ve already learnt and to hopefully learn even more.

However, early next year I will also undertake a French for Fun and Travel class at the adult learning school where I am currently taking the Spanish class, so it would also make sense to spend some time in France.

At any point I can always return to Greece, which could serve as my European base. My aim is to spend most of the northern spring and summer in Europe, and then travel to America later in the year for a stay in New York, before driving south to Arizona to visit a cousin in Tucson. I will either return to Australia from there, or return to Europe.

As you can see, I have much to decide, and a thousand decisions to make before I book my flight, and for a Libran, a thousand decisions is about 999 decisions too many!

Spring Flowers image courtesy of Rikx Flickr Photostream

In Review – The Texas Cowboy Cookbook

~ As a child growing up in the 1950s and 60s, my world was filled in part with stories and movies depicting the exciting life of the American cowboy.

From Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger, to Saturday afternoon cowboy serials at my local cinema, and television series such as Gunsmoke, Bat Masterson, and even The Cisco Kid, the American west was as much a part of my suburban Adelaide upbringing as it was for a child in New York City. And yes, I too played ‘Cowboys and Indians’ after school, and had to take my turn as one of the Indians who invariably ended up getting shot by my best friend whose turn it was to be “the fastest gun in the west”.

Which brings me to Robb Walsh’s wonderful 2007 publication, The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, and which, despite its title, is more than just a book filled with western recipes.

I think it is fair to say that I’ve learnt more about the history and the life of cowboys from this cookbook, than anything else I’ve read so far on the topic, which may seem strange when you think about it – but then I haven’t read too many histories of the American West, and anyway, this is no ordinary cookbook. Not when the cover proclaims that The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, is “A History in Recipes and Photos.” And what a history it is.

The boom years of the American West occurred after the American Civil War – from 1866 to 1886, a period of just 20 short years. Almost everything we think we know about the West: the myths and legends, the Indian wars and the cattle trails, the gunfights and the outlaws, stems from this period.

The Texas Cowboy Cookbook is divided into ten chapters, each beginning with historical information examining the chapter’s theme. For example, The Texas Cowboy Myth, examines the background to the myths surrounding the American West, and the methods used to transform what was a tough, hard, dangerous life on the American frontier into the stuff of legends.

One of the greatest myth makers was Colonel William Cody, more popularly known as “Buffalo Bill”. Cody, who was in fact an army scout and real life Indian fighter, caused a sensation whenever his ‘Wild West Shows’ toured the big cities along the Eastern seaboard, and brought some of the flavour of the west to well-healed city slickers. It was “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Shows” that apparently invented the ‘circling the wagons’ myth that became a staple scene in many early Hollywood Westerns.

In Los Vaqueros, we learn more about the influence of the Spanish on the American West. In fact, throughout the book, Robb Walsh constantly explodes another great Western myth – the one that almost universally depicts Mexicans as greasers, bandits and outlaws, and relegates their contribution to the periphery of cowboy mythology, or as mere footnotes (if that).

For me, chapter 6, Black Cowboys, was the most surprising section of the book. Again, Walsh explodes the myth that the American West and the cowboys that rode it were always tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed and white. There were plenty of Anglo cowboys of course, but as the book points out: “…Texas cattle-raisers also included Spanish vaqueros, black slaves, former slaves and free people of color, Cajuns, Creoles, and immigrants freshly arrived from Mexico, England, Ireland, and Scotland, as well as other parts of the United States.”

While the exact number of African American cowboys will never be known: “The contention has been made that as many as 40 percent of all Texas cowboys were black.” Walsh writes that this claim depends on who is doing the counting. However, Walsh also writes that “By 1860 there were 180,000 slaves in Texas, 30 percent of the state’s population.”

It should come as no surprise then, that when the Civil War ended, many of the freed slaves continued to work as cowboys throughout the South and in Texas in particular.

And so to the diet of the American Cowboy.

If you thought the typical cowboy diet consisted of not much more than beans and beef, you would of course be wrong. Again The Texas Cowboy Cookbook illustrates, in more ways than one, that the western diet was influenced by a wide range of cultures and ingredients. From “…the wild game and goats preferred by the Spanish herders of the late 1700s, to the black Southern cooking of slaves and free people of color who worked as cowboys on East Texas ranches beginning in the early 1800s.”

The end of the Civil War also saw the arrival of bulk supplies of foodstuffs into the West. Now staples such as flour, coffee and lard were easy to come by. The advent of canning also saw a wide variety of foods (especially canned fruits) become available to cooks for use in recipes along the various routes used for extended cattle drives.

The Texas Cowboy Cookbook presents over 100 “genuine” cowboy recipes, as well as a selection of newer Western recipes created by modern cooks in what Walsh (in his final chapter) refers to as “The New Cowboy Cuisine”.

Starting with a look at the different types of chiles (including Anaheim, Poblano, Jalapeño, Serrano and Pequin – and their variants), Walsh takes the reader through ways to roast, grind, and make various chili sauces and salsas for year round use. In West of The Pecos we learn how to make a sourdough starter that can be used to make a continuous supply of sourdough pancakes, biscuits, hamburger buns, and more.

Having got the seasonings and the sourdoughs out of the way, the cookbook tackles the recipes proper. Everything you expected and a whole lot more is presented to the aspiring cowboy chef.

From Chili con Carne, to Chili con Queso; from Cinnamon Chicken to Green Gumbo with Fish; from Fried Green Tomatoes to Mexican Pot Roast. There are meat recipes aplenty: chicken, venison, pork and beef spare ribs, tenderloin steaks, and patties. You get soups and stews; corn bread, okra, and fatback; desserts like buttermilk-lemon pie, peach cobbler, and butter pecan ice-cream. There are noodle, rice, tomato, and onion dishes. And there are salads, sausages and sweet potato recipes. If you can’t find something to satisfy the hunger inside, you are not looking hard enough.

To end this review I will include just one recipe - for Cowboy Coffee. I look forward to the day when I’m watching a Western in my local cinema, and see the ‘cowboys’ make coffee this way – with water, coffee and a raw egg.

Wayne Walker’s Cowboy Coffee (makes 8 cups)
Wayne Walker’s technique for settling the grounds of coffee is to drop a whole raw egg into the coffee and stir it gently. It’s actually similar to the technique used by French chefs to clarify stock. Just don’t eat the egg.

8 heaping tablespoons medium-ground 100 percent Arabica coffee
8 cups spring water
1 raw egg

METHOD: In a metal coffeepot over medium heat, add the coffee to the water. Bring just to a boil and then reduce to a simmer (or move the pot to the side of the campfire) for a few minutes, or until strong enough. Break the egg into the pot and stir gently, being careful not to break the yolk. Wait at least 5 minutes without disturbing the pot. Pour carefully.

The Texas Cowboy Cookbook is generously illustrated with period black and white photographs and drawings, and includes a useful Resource Guide for readers wanting to find out more via the Internet. There is also a good Bibliography and a comprehensive Index.

The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, is worth reading for the historical information alone, but of course, if you want to try your hand at genuine old west recipes, the cookbook is the perfect place to start. So strap on your chaps, clear some space in the kitchen – or dig a fire pit in the back yard – and start cookin’. Yee-haa!

Title: The Texas Cowboy Cookbook
Author: Robb Walsh
Publisher: Broadway (April 10, 2007)
Language: English
Paperback: 272 pages
ISBN-10: 0767921496
ISBN-13: 978-0767921497

Click link to purchase The Texas Cowboy Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos or click link below to purchase book direct from Amazon.Com…



You can also purchase Robb Walsh’s The Tex-Mex Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos and Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from the Pit Bosses

Image courtesy of Amazon.Com

The Week That Was #10

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Welcome to my weekly collection of the Odd, the Useful, and the often Bizarre.

The Odd: Finland Talks Trash: Finland has developed a series of talking trash cans to help keep their cities cleaner and make visitors more aware of carelessly tossing trash. The trash cans also have the added benefit of teaching visitors a bit of the Finnish language. The talking trash bins greet passers-by and encourage them to throw their trash away. They are never at a loss for words. Tourists will be delighted to hear that the talking trash bins speak not only Finnish and Swedish, but also Japanese, English, German, Polish and Russian. Tourists can also learn the basics of the Finnish language, such as: “One of the sure signs of summer in Finland is that the trash bins start talking.” Read more here… or Watch a video of the talking trash bins on YouTube…

The Useful: World Trade Center Transportation Center. Consumer Traveller reports that the first rib-like forms of Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Transportation Center (see image) are rising from the giant pit at the base of Ground Zero in Manhattan. This stunning structure is expected to cost more than US$3 billion and will not be completed for another four years. The building will be the transportation hub for the train station below the World Trade Center. Construction will involve miles of walkways for pedestrians below ground as well as facilities for repair and supply of the trains, and hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail space. Read more here…

The Bizarre: Naked Swiss Hikers Must Cover Up. No, I’m not suggesting it is bizarre that naked hikers cover up, I’m with the Swiss authorities on this one. It seems the tiny Swiss canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden has voted to prohibit the phenomenon of naked hiking. Anyone found wandering the Alps wearing nothing but a sturdy pair of hiking boots will now be fined. Apparently the locals have been outraged by an upsurge in hikers who think the best way to appreciate the mountains is with their clothes off. The vote, taken at Appenzell's annual Landsgemeinde (an open-air meeting of all registered voters held in the town square), showed there was a big majority in favour of prohibiting naked hiking, and introducing fines of Sfr 200 ($175). Read more here…

Photo courtesy of the Spanish Institute…