This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
Prairie Flavors


OKLAHOMA CHUCK


Kent and Shannon Rollins are the owners of Red River Ranch Chuck Wagon Catering in Hollis, Okla. Photos by Laura Araujo


By Laura Araujo F


rom the Oklahoma prairies to the New York television studios—and everywhere in between—chuck wagon cooking has taken Kent Rol- lins, and his wife, Shannon, on a unique journey. “It has taken me a lot of places and I’ve met a lot of people,”


Kent says with a cowboy drawl. Kent and Shannon are the owners of Red River Ranch Chuck Wagon Catering in Hollis, Okla., and have cooked for cowboys on working ranches in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Kansas. Kent has also put his food to the test against some of the best-known chefs


in the country. He defeated celebrity chef Bobby Flay in a chicken fried steak “throw down” cooking challenge. He has also competed on Food Network’s Chopped Grill Masters, where he was runner up, on Chopped Redemption, and on NBC’s Food Fighters. Gov. Keating named him the offi cial chuck wagon cook of Oklahoma in 1996. “It’s a great honor to be named the offi cial chuck wagon of Oklahoma,”


he says. “I represent Oklahoma, the cowboy, the simple people.” Chuck wagon cooking is not always glamorous, however. It means he’s up before the sun, preparing a hearty breakfast for the ranch hands. He has cooked in the heat of the Oklahoma summer, in sub-zero weather and even in the midst of dust storms. Kent began cooking long before he started on the chuck wagon in 1993.


He grew up on a ranch in Hollis. As the youngest child he stayed inside longer than his siblings and enjoyed a special bond with his mother. “When I was 7 or 8 years old, she taught me to cook and sew,” he says. “She taught me to put out the best food and to cook with your heart, not just your hands.” Kent worked on the family ranch before he began cooking for the cow- boys, so he knows the importance of good “chuck” (cowboy lingo for food). “When you feed them well, they work better,” he says. Kent works out of the 1876 Studebaker wagon he purchased and restored. His right-hand “woman” is Bertha, a 385-pound camp stove. He describes her as a “hateful hussy” during the summer months; but during the winter, he says she is the “nicest woman.”


42


Kent met the other woman of his life, Shannon, when she was coordinat- ing a sourdough workshop for the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. “I had to call him and I had no clue what he was saying,” she says. “He asked me to get crock jars for him and I got him crock-pots instead.” After that, she attended his cooking school and they later married. Kent tells the story of capturing Shannon’s heart in his new cookbook,


“A Taste of Cowboy: Ranch Recipes and Tales from the Trail.” “I’d like to believe it was my good looks and cowboy charisma that won my woman over,” Kent writes. “Truth be known, it was this dish [Hop-Along Hominy Casserole] (see recipe). Being from up north, my wife had never heard of hominy, and her mother, being Catholic, kept calling it The Homily. But hey, we all need a good blessing every now and then…” The 256-page cookbook is full of humorous anecdotes about the cowboy


life. Two-and-a-half years in the making, it is a collection of Kent’s most popular chuck wagon recipes, adapted for the home cook. He even shares his secret recipe for Bread Pudding with Whiskey Cream Sauce (see recipe).


In addition to recipes, the book is fi lled with wisdom from the ranch. The simplicity of the cowboy lifestyle portrayed in the cookbook—both through Kent’s stories and Shannon’s photos—keep the pages fl ipping. “A slower pace of life is often the fastest way to cure your problems,” Kent


says in the cookbook. Kent and Shannon offer the opportunity for people to experience this “simpler life” through Dutch oven cooking classes each fall and spring. Participants get a real chuck wagon experience, complete with Kent’s hu- morous stories from the ranch, even sleeping in teepees like on an old cow ranch. “A lot of people have never seen the sun go down,” he says of the partic- ipants in his cooking classes. Though they’ve probably seen the sun set many times, most have never witnessed it as it sinks below the horizon of the wide-open prairie. “It’s the best view out the kitchen window,” he says. For more information about Kent Rollins and Red River Ranch Chuck Wagon, visit www.kentrollins.com.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132