By Norma Dittman
Murray County News Staffwriter
Murray County Fair attendees were invited to try some taste bud tantalizing cooking as they visited the DT Chuck Wagon located just to the west of the Bingo Stand. Chuck Wagon cooking samples were available on Wednesday and Thursday of the Fair and brought to the fairgrounds by Jim and Susan Patrick, Watertown, SD.
“My husband built this wagon twenty years ago,” Susan Patrick stated. “When he rolled it out of the shed, we decided that we needed to go places and that people who have chuck wagons cook. Neither of us cooked, so we learned how to cook.”
The Patrick’s attended their first cook-off at the Spirit of the West. “That was so much fun!” Susan exclaimed. “But they stopped having that one. I retired last year and that has given me the freedom to participate in more of the chuckwagon events. Jim and I enjoy them so much.” Susan was the principal at the Lincoln Elementary School, Watertown, SD, until she retired.
Jim and Susan have taken their chuck wagon to Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico, Madison, Wisconsin, Ft. Sisseton, South Dakota and many other places where chuckwagons and their cooks can have some fun sharing about their wagons and their cooking skills.
“We have also been asked to cook for groups of people – like the 80 persons who were at a hunting lodge. One year it was the Buffalo Round-Up at Custer State Park,” Susan explained.
When asked if they give classes, Susan chuckled and said, “My youngest sister laughed when I told her I was going to learn how to cook for recipes chuck wagon-style. I’m not a cook and she knows that, but she shared the Caribbean Roast recipe with me that I have right here. I learned to make it and someone told me that I should enter it in our fair. I did. I received $500.00 and they sent me to Las Vegas to compete in a cook-off there.”
The Caribbean Roast referred to had been marinated for several hours and then cooked to tender perfection by Susan. She was offering samples to all who passed by the DT Chuck Wagon. Earlier in the day, Susan and Jim had prepared sourdough biscuits and scalloped corn.
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