I developed my cooking skills on pack trips and in hunting camps in the mountains of Northern British Columbia. I learned to cook over an open fire in 40 below and a 100 above, in snowstorms and monsoon type rain, usually in the dark. I really miss those days and will go back there when I retire. I am a horse dentist in southern California and have traveled over most of the world working on horses. I love trying ethnic foods, but strangs looking sea creatures, dog, and the spices of Asia don't agree with me. I am talking of the real stuff, (spices), not the skim milk variety they serve here in North America. Many times in camp I would catch a large Dolly Varden, several Grayling or trout to feed the men. Sometimes, I would shoot several ptarmigan, or one of the hunters would bring in a moose liver, moose nose or tongue, or their might an elk roast. It was important to be versatile and use the natural foods as much as possile. I loved to gather wild mushrooms, onions, blue berrie Currently, I am developing recipes for the Nopal cactus. Fortunately, I can walk outside and slice off a fresh leaf for each meal. It is hard to mess up a meal with Nopal as long as you remember to use it with the last ingredients. It doesn't require a lot of cooking. I find it works well with combinations of the following foods, chicken, green beans, black beans, kidney beans, yams, sweet potatos, potatos, jalapenos, serranos, chives, onions, eggs, cheese, peppers, avocados, shark, mahi mahi, Halibut, cream sauces, pineapple, and ginger. I am currently cxperimenting with several nonalcoholic drinks and it is a blast. The Nopal is highly regarded in Mexican folk medicine and seems to be effective in weight loss and is considered beneficial to diabetics, I will vouch for the weight loss qualities. I am a fan of the Nopal. My mother was from the deep south and I first became intrigued with cooking while watching her prepare southern dishes. My great grandmother was a Creek Indian and could prepare a big meal from foodstuffs found in the forests and fields, her pie crusts close to a half inch thick, dry, light, and flaky. Someday, I hope to duplicate those pie crusts. My good friend and hunting partner, nicknamed Knarley Manners by me, was an excellent camp cook and made excellent pie crusts in an open fire. He claimed the secret was using lard rendered from bear fat. You might laugh, but I've rarely seen better pie crust. I am anxious to make butter scotch pie with a half shot of Irish Whiskey. You see Irish Whiskey is much smoother and lends itself better to desserts than Scotch, just a trick for an old recipe but cooking should be fun. While serving as a marine at Camp Pendletonm my best friend was an Apache named Joe. During liberty we would tour Baja California and Joe introduced me to Spanish Whenever I can design a nice fulfilling meal without much in the way of ingrediants, under difficult conditions. While on a Boy Scout camping trip, (I became a cook early in life), I was cooking a Mulligan stew for 30 boys and scout leaders. An older boy kept encouraging me to add more pepper because you could never taste it anyway. It was a disaster and everyone was mad at me. It still bothers me to have ruined that much food. The other two disasters happened in hunting camp. one of the hunters insisted on cooking breakfast for several of us, I agreed assuming with all his enthusiasm that he must have some ability. I went to attend to the horses and came back 20 minutes later to check on breakfast. I was handed a bowl of oatmeal with spam and raisins cooked all together. Needless to say, everyone was really upset with me again. On another occassion one of the hunters came back from being out for two days because of being socked in with heavy fog, a big Chippewa named Belcourt was his guide and I asked him what was wrong with the hunter. "He wouldn't eat." is all he said. "What do you mean,