For the third year in a row I "won" best dish at our sporting clays team league send off using one of the recipes from MD's wife's cookbooks. This year I did the elk fajitas except I swapped pheasant for the elk. I wasn't going to use that much elk on that group. Last year I took top honors with her pheasant cannoli and the year before with something else that I can't remember off hand.

For everyone else, I strongly recommend Eileen's cookbooks. Not only are the recipes worth it but the early chapters describing the processes, reasons, and tools are invaluable. Reading her comments in the marinade book lead to an epiphany regarding cooking wine and a new perspective on their use. I have many cookbooks for wild game and her's have pushed nearly all the others to the back corner of the shelf.

Again, thanks Eileen for your books.

Eileen thanks you very much. Congratulations on your wins!

Thats a tough job John has in the off season.....trying all her new recipes. Lucky guy!

Right now she's finishing up the last of the recipes for her upcoming jerky book. It's been hard duty....

Will wild turkey be in there? Just had a relative tell me that's a) the only way he can gag it down and b) it's delicious.

Yes, there will be bird-jerky recipes, including turkey and goose, as well as a variety of big game.

John:
Top of the morning to you and Eileen, I hope the day in your part of Montana is as bright and promising as it is here.

I'd just like to add a hearty "amen" to the accolades on Eileen's cookbooks.

The copies of "Slice of the Wild" which I've given to people as gifts are always very, very much appreciated and may I add talked about later on. The last one I gave to a young co-worker has him coming up to me a couple mornings a week asking, "have you tried that recipe for ,,,,,,,"

It's very cool from my perspective to see the next generation of hunters get excited about both processing their own game and cooking it. It adds several additional dimensions to their overall experience.

Oh and another rave review from a buddy who I gave "Gun Gack 1" to as well John.

Of course that means I'll have to procure a copy of Gun Gack II for him on my next order from you good folks.

Thanks again for you both sharing your knowledge with us and all the best to you as we head into summer.

Dwayne

To add to my post:

Our league has a captains' meeting/pot luck dinner to which each team brings a dish to share. I've been representing our team (as cook/co-captain) for 18 years now. The voting on meals is done by those present with no voting for your own dish. We have won it 11 times over that period, 8 times with a dish prepared by me.

The first 5 times I won, I prepared the dish several different times and adjusted the base recipe as I saw fit. The three times I used Eileen's recipe I made and served it for the first time at the meeting. I did add mushrooms to the first dish (though I still can't remember which one it was) and should have done so this time with the fajitas but didn't as I knew there were a couple guys who would not eat mushrooms and I would lose the chance for their vote.

My wife just ate some of the fajita "leftovers" I did not bring to the meeting. She loved it and was impressed how tender the meat was. I was going to have some myself but it seems my wife brought the remainder with to her bible study meeting. It's leftover beef stroganoff for me!

woodsmaster,

One of the nice things we've heard from quite a few hunters is about their wives starting to enjoy eating wild game, due to one of Eileen's cookbooks.

A few even started hunting with their husbands--which is how Eileen started hunting with me. She didn't hunt when we got married, but soon discovered she liked eating antelope, deer and elk. Eventually she started feeling a little guilty about how "hard" I had to work to keep the freezer filled, so decided to help out....

Now, of course, she has far surpassed me as a game cook, and is at least as good a hunter. While we often hunt together for antelope and elk, we usually go our separate ways when hunting deer, since she prefers hunting whitetails on the public land along a local riverbottom, while I prefer mule deer in the foothills and mountains.

Might also add that quite a few wives have taken over the game cooking in their home after receiving copies, even if they don't start hunting--but Eileen points they also tend to get pickier about how their hunting husbands take care of game!