30 Years Later, This Job Still Defines Me | Cooking Over Fire in the Middle of Nowhere
Jun 7, 2026
Long before YouTube, cookbooks, and the chuck wagon, I took a job in New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness guiding elk hunters and serving as the camp cook. The truth is, I did not know much about outdoor cooking when I started, but necessity is a great teacher. Deep in the backcountry, cooking over an open fire for hungry hunters every day, I learned through trial and error what worked and what did not. Looking back, that trip changed the course of my life and how I became a cowboy cook.
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