Cookbook Chronicles: Cook Like A Cowboy

[COUNTRY MUSIC] My name is Grady Spears. I’m from Fort Worth, Texas. And my latest book is called “The Texas Cowboy Kitchen.” I have a new book called “Cooking the Cowboy Way” that will be out in November of 2009. I was out running a little bitty restaurant in the middle of nowhere out in West Texas, and the chef walked out on me one day. 

And so I got into the whole cowboy into the food out of kind of mishap or by chance because I’d grown up in the cattle business and the friends around me were all cowboys. And I relied on them to teach me how to get through the mess I was in. So it was kind of a catch-22. Either you pick it up and start cooking or you don’t survive. 

[COUNTRY MUSIC] 

The three ingredients that are always in my kitchen are number one, beef. Number two, brown sugar, salt, and probably coarse ground black pepper. Those three things. I came from the beef industry, so I have a passion for the rancher and for the cowboy. Number two, it’s hard to cook things without– well, beef is my passion. 

And number two, you’ve got to have a good seasoning no matter what it is you’re cooking. And salt and sugar always make good seasonings. 

[COUNTRY MUSIC] 

My comfort food is definitely chicken fried steak. And chicken fried steak, most people think it’s fried chicken– you know, it’s chicken that’s been fried or it’s– but it’s not. It’s beef that’s been fried like chicken. So it’s actually deep fried, pounded out beef. So it’s definitely chicken fried steak. 

[COUNTRY MUSIC] 

I’d be a chicken fried steak. I’m sticking with my comfort food. I think it represents Texas. It represents comfort food. It represents the beef industry. I think it’s big. You know, so definitely a chicken fried steak. That or a big old rib eye. Either one. 

[COUNTRY MUSIC] 

I would imagine mostly rural people making my recipes. People that live in the country. They’re all fresh food. You know, it’s all very simple, very country, I guess, is a good word. Or rural. You know, and the rural people cook very fresh. They cook very simple. They cook very– they use a lot of things that they grow themselves. 

But I also envision people in the city that have, you know, aspirations of living in the country one day cooking my food also. I mean, it’s just good, honest, simple food that I think anybody can do. And, you know, anybody can cool like a cowboy. It’s actually pretty simple stuff. 

[COUNTRY MUSIC]