Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

The 89-cent pizza

Julie Carter

Cooking has always been a challenge for our boy Dan the Team Roper. He seems to focus on the shortcuts and then wonders why he has a 99-percent failure rate, that he still has to eat.

Dan has established a running record of blowing up tator tot casseroles in the microwave and a subsequent serious failure with his attempt at cornbread in the Crockpot.

His latest venture has been the acquisition of a brand new "deeeluxe" toaster oven and last week's attempt to make a nice supper for himself when he got in from the roping arena.

"They looked real good in the picture on the box," he said his slow Texas cowboy drawl accented with a touch of his happy-hick personna.

"I bought a couple of them 89-cent frozen pizzas and thought they would make a right good supper for me and Mary Margaret."

Mary Margaret is Dan's newest dog who is the replacement for a few "good'uns" that went on to their great reward. She's one of those little dogs that is half a dog high and three dogs long - a black, tan and white Corgi who quickly established her adoration of Dan.

They all - the dog, cat, horses and cowboy - live happily at Dan's place in the woods. The smaller critters 7share the comfort of his trailer house where he has put the bed in the kitchen "where it belongs," he said. I was afraid to ask the logic on that one.

Mary Margaret has her own recliner that she occasionally shares with the cat named Gato. She is not allowed in Dan's recliner and he isn't allowed in her's. It's an understanding they reached early on and it keeps the household orderly.

To give Dan his due, he hasn't always been school-ed in the finer points of dining. One time he and some of his kin headed over to Joe Allen's barbeque joint in Abilene - world famous, at least in those parts.

The waitress that appeared, had on a very low-cut shirt, and was showing an ample amount of cleavage. One of the male kinfolk zoomed right in and was quickly lost in the staring. The waitress gave her spiel of the day's specials and as she wrote the orders, this mesmerized cowboy, still staring, said, "I'll have one."

They waited awhile and lunch appeared. He looked at whatever it was they brought him, unable to identify it, and tells his wife, "Mama, next time we go somewhere and the waitress has more cleavage than I do butt crack, you do the ordering."

Dan's nearly a celebrity now. His following of fans down at the tractor store gathers on Fridays to read the latest of the Dan stories.

When the last cooking adventure showed up in print, they began offering their treasured bachelor cooking recipes, although not all are single. The best one involved tuna, jalapenos and mustard on tortillas and for breakfast, stale Fritos with beer to moisten them.

That particular guy had been rodeoing for a week or so, came home to a Mother Hubbard pantry, woke up hungry and remembered a bag of Fritos in the truck from the last road trip. And, of course, he had beer.

Dan hasn't quite figured out what happened inside the toaster oven but related that the pizzas came out tough enough "to use for new soles on his boots."

"They just didn't look like the picture on the box," he lamented.

He offered them to Mary Margaret and the last he saw, she was tossing one around like a plastic Frisbee and wasn't quite sure it was something she should eat.

Dan said soon after he was headed out to find some pliers to try to get the cheese off that "thing" in the bottom of the toaster oven.

I hope he remembered to unplug it first.

I'd say it might be a real hair-curling event, but with Dan, there would be no evidence of that.

Visit Julie's Web site at www.julie-carter.com. Her books are available there..