#38 The Great American Bison Cookbook

#38 The Great American Bison Cookbook

This is called a bison cookbook but to me they're Buffaloes! When we left the States family and friends said it would make it so much easier for them to buy me gifts if I collected something. After all they didn't know what I had any more since they seldom visited. I wanted to please them but I also didn't want a ton of cows or ducks or lambs which some of my friends were collecting for their country-themed homes and kitchens. I decided to give them something really tough and picked buffalos. After all, how many could they find, well the answer is 100s and 100s of them!

I have buffalos made of crystal, wood, plastic, stone, metal, you name it I have it. I have books, postcards, stamps, coins and magnets. Real bones, antiques and some rather valuable ones. I have so many I have to rotate my collection since I try to contain it to two bookcases but many have escaped. It's kind of neat when people find out you collect something rather strange if they see one, they think of you. Even people who really have no reason to buy me a gift will appear with a buffalo for me and it's amazing no two are alike! I've only bought a couple for myself. One of them is the Steiff stuffed one in the picture, he came from Harrods department store in London and at 43 pounds, he was my most expensive.

Many of them are food related, beer bottles, antique tins and advertising signs. My sister found me a great 3-D Stampede beer sign from a Calgary brewery in New York of all places. There's buffalos on old diner dishes and mugs. Do you remember the buffalo on the animal cracker box? There's a cookie cutter and buffalo jerky. So you get the idea I have lots of buffaloes and only one poor child to inherit all this stuff. But I think I've got this covered, there's this beautiful museum called "Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump" in southern Alberta. That's where the Inuits would stampede the buffalos up to a cliff and then they would be waiting at the bottom to butcher and process the remains. It was a brilliant set up and the bones at the bottom of the cliff are meters deep. Anyway, in a few years I figure I'll box up all my buffaloes and head south. I'll place everything outside their door, ring the bell and run for the hills. I'm sure they'll be thrilled to get all of them, I'm sure not having a garage sale.

But back to the cookbook, think of the feast they must have had after a successful run off the cliff. Buffalo is wonderful eating, it's very lean with little fat or cholesterol. Plus if you eat buffalo, more people will raise them and the buffalo will continue to make a comeback. If you want a challenge, click on the photo of my refrigerator and try to count the buffalo magnets, and that's just one side! So cookbook #38 is The Great American Bison Cookbook.