Summer 2008
Summer is the time to enjoy warm weather and plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables... if you can get out and grow your own, you should! If not, visit your local farmers to see what they have to offer.
COOKING SHOW
These healthy veggie burgers are made with sprouted pumpkin seeds. When raw pumpkin seeds are soaked for 6-24 hours, their enzymes “wake-up” and become active. Soaked seeds have more protein and minerals readily available for the body, and are easily digested. Pumpkin seeds are especially beneficial for men’s health. You can eat these burgers uncooked, but we like to throw them on the grill for 10 minutes.
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Inspired by the flavors of the rugged Southwest, we made it a little bit spicy by adding guajillo chile peppers, which you can find in the produce section of most supermarkets. The next time you have a barbeque, be sure to make this and give your guests a different kind of condiment.
RECIPE
TASTY TIP
Avocado Mash is a great topping for burgers. It is basically guacamole, but with less lime juice and other ingredients. There are no rules for what to include, but we keep it simple with a squeeze of lime and some cilantro. We like eating it with the Guajillo Ketchup.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
By Anastasia Dyakovskaya
At midnight, when the cattle are sleeping,
On my saddle I pillow my head,
And up at the heavens lie peeping
From out of my cold grassy bed;--
Often and often I wondered,
At night when lying alone,
If every bright star up yonder
Is a big peopled world like our own.
-excerpt from The Cowboy’s Meditation
When we think of poetry it’s not often that we conjure up the image of a cowboy. Try again. This time, the cowboy you see in your mind’s eye, bobbing in his saddle or crouching next to a fire, isn’t just a cowboy. He is a thinker and an artist. You don’t have to be a cowboy to write cowboy poetry, but it certainly does help, as these poems offer a rare glimpse of first-hand encounters with the romanticized realities of a cowboy – or girl’s – western life.
Cowboy poetry is still a vibrant and evolving literary form today because cowboys are still carrying out the same necessary functions that they have throughout their history. The origins of what we now consider a typical cowboy lay in medieval Spain, where vaqueros (literally translated as cowboys) were employed to herd cattle over vast expanses of land. When the Conquistadors and other Spaniards reached the Americas during the 16th century, so too did this practice. It was not until the second half of the 19th century, however, when the ongoing encounters and exchange among American settlers and Hispanic and Native American vaqueros finally merged into something new: what we now know as the traditional American cowboy.
The age-old livelihoods of this new generation are what provided their pens and paper with subject matter – ranch work, the tending of the animals, the natural surroundings of the American West, memory and nostalgia, and a description of western life in general. In its structure, though, cowboy poetry tends to be somewhat limited, as most popular poets have remained within the guidelines of classical rhyming verse. More often than not, this is because these poems are meant to be recited or put to music. Nevertheless, there are also a number of cowboy poets who break this form and there continues to be a boundless variety of work.
There are many American cowboys today that still take this genre quite seriously and that continue to contribute their talents to the field. For more information, please visit:
http://www.cowboypoetry.com
http://www.cowboy-poetry.org
http://www.hebercitycowboypoetry.com
http://www.westernfolklife.org
