Texas Chili

It’s nearly 100 degrees (F) and 85% humidity outside here (as it is for many of you) and I’m hungry for comfort food. Not just any soup or casserole or pasta, but chili. And not just any chili, but my mother’s chili. I have the recipe and even if I follow it exactly, it still doesn’t taste quite like when she made it. But that got me to thinking about the origins of chili.

To explore a bit, let’s dig into the history of the state dish of Texas, chili. The one thing known for certain is that chili did NOT originate in Mexico. The Diccionario de Mejicanismos, published in 1959, defines chili con carne as (roughly translated): “detestable food passing itself off as Mexican, sold in the U.S. from Texas to New York.”

Historians believe chili came from the Canary Islands to what is now San Antonio in the 18^th century. Dallas millionaire and chili lover, Everrette DeGolyer’s research stated that the first chili mix was a pemmican-type brick on dried beef, fat, pepper, salt, and chile peppers pounded together and shaped into bricks for the cowboys and gold prospectors around 1850. A brick could be dropped into a pot with water and boiled into, well, chili.

In Texas prisons the “bread and water“ was a stew made of a tough cut of beef cut into fine pieces and boiled with chiles and spices. The food became a kind of status symbol of the Texas prisons and the inmates used to rate jails on the quality of their chili.

Texas chili went national in 1893, when Texas set up a San Antonio Chili Stand at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

You can still get the original spice blend created in 1890 from Pendery’s World of Chilis and Spices in Fort Worth. (www.Penderys.com)

Any chili afficionado will tell you it all starts with the meat, or in the case of Texas chili, beef. Ranching is big business in Texas, after all. To compete in the Terlingua Chili Festival, the most famous chili competition in the world, you must use beef, cut up in some fashion. Strips, chunks, cubes, but some version of chopped up beef. I use ground (gasp!).

Next you brown and drain the meat; add… Well, here. I’ll let William Clark Green tell you how to make it.  

The Chili Song – performed by William Clark Green

See you next month!

Tracy

New Release — Den of Thieves by Patti Sherry-Crews

When his identical twin brother is arrested, the Pinkerton Detective Agency enlists Wynne Palmatier to go undercover and impersonate his outlaw brother, Ennis. His mission is to infiltrate his brother’s gang. Ennis tells Wynne everything he needs to know. Except for one thing: there are two women with the outlaws, and one of them is his wife.

 Lucy House is still paying for the day she strayed away from decency. Now the handsome outlaw she ran away with has lost his appeal and she longs to get away from this life. As the danger mounts, can Wynne and Lucy escape this den of thieves?

EXCERPT

Texas, 1883

     She experienced the view as an ache. So impossibly blue and bright. She squeezed her eyes shut to block out the blue sky to savor the sweet scent of the flowers without the distraction of the sky, which even now flashed on the backs of her eyelids. The rain lilies perfuming the air, flowering after a heavy rain, would only last a day or two. How fortunate they were to catch them in bloom. The delicate white petals, so easy to miss. She took this as a good omen. With her eyes still closed, she listened to the sound of the buckboard wheels bumping up and down in the ruts of the dirt road and felt the gentle touch of Billy’s coat sleeve brushing against her as his arms moved with the reins.

     He nudged her. “What are you thinking about? You’ve got a smile lighting up your face like rays of sunshine on a summer morning.”

     Her eyes snapped open at the sound of his voice, a deep melody that reverberated in her heart. She turned in his direction to see his dark eyes sparkling with delight.

     “Why, I’m…” She let out a nervous giggle and tugged at her bonnet strings before fixing him with a bold look. “I’m thinking how this time next week I’ll be living a different life. The life of a married lady.”

     

A Gift of Christmas Hope by Kaye Spencer - December #blogabookscene #Christmasstory #westernromance #PrairieRosePubs

A Gift of Christmas Hope tells the story of a well-to-do lady gambler, Mara Wyndham, who is traveling from the East back home to Texas with a stagecoach full of treasure when she encounters a con man on the look-out for another wealthy woman he can spend the winter with while charming her out of her money.

The story unfolds with hints about the woman's mysterious true identity, what her treasure really is, and how the con man, Neal Behlen, turns out to be a crucial link in her life's chain of events.


A Texas Panhandle blizzard threatens to keep Mara from reaching her destination by Christmas Day, and this is totally unacceptable to her, as there children looking forward to her arrival.

Although I don't go into detail about where these children are living, I took the essence of a real children's home as the model.

The real facility is located in the Texas Panhandle, not far from Amarillo, is a facility with a history dating back to 1938. This facility is still in existence today. The facility, and what it came to stand for, was the life's work of a man with a vision who created a 'place' for homeless, wayward, and abandoned children—boys to begin with and later girls—to live and have the opportunity to turn their lives around.

It became a haven where children could get a decent education, have enough food to eat, sleep with a roof over their heads, learn a trade or skill, be involved in athletics, receive medical attention, and have their spiritual needs met. It was a home when there was no home for these children.

Cal Farley Ranch - aerial view
Photo from slideshow on this website: https://www.calfarley.org/boysranch/

This man with a vision was Cal Farley, and and the place he built for needy children is now called the Cal Farley Boys and Girls Ranch. Click HERE to read a history of the ranch.

Kaye Spencer's photo - Cal Farley Ranch from a distance

EXCERPT

Neal looked at her a long time. “When my pa died, he took everything I cared about with him. There wasn’t anything left to settle.”

Mara placed a gentle hand on his arm. “Your father made his choice. Regardless of his last words to you, I have to think he wanted you to lead a good life. Yes, he was despondent; he saw no reason for living, but why else would he have left you money and property? If life was really as terrible as he said, he’d have taken you with him when he killed himself to spare you from life’s pain and suffering. But he didn’t. He left you the one thing that refused to die with him. Hope.”

“Hope! It’s always hope with you.” Neal threw up his arms and left the bed in a bound. He crossed the small room in quick strides to stand at the fireplace, one arm resting on the mantle as he gazed into the flames.

Mara sat motionless, frowning at his outburst. “Yes. Hope is all we have.”

“My parents had hope, too, and look where it got them.” His voice was hard and cold. When he turned, a dark shadow of regret and anger clouded the usual sparkle in his eyes. “They put every penny they had into the hope of a better life, and it was stolen from them. In the end, they didn’t even get to say goodbye to each other. They each died alone and hopeless eighteen hundred miles apart. I’ve carried that with me all these years. Here and here.” He touched his head then his heart. “We’re born, we endure—and then we die.”

Mara left the bed in a whirling swirl of skirts, clutching both hands to her breast, her heart pounding, stomach churning. His cavalier sarcasm cut her to the bone. “You are not the only one who carries memories so painful that remembering them physically hurts.” Tears she’d kept bottled up for years came unbidden, streaming down her cheeks, fueled by the anguish she’d buried in the deepest part of her heart.

“I was orphaned before I was two years old. My mother was a young Mexican girl who died at the hands of a vicious patron.” She saw the recognition in his eyes. “Yes, she was a prostitute. I was too young to remember, but I’m told after she died, I was passed from one person to another because no one wanted me.” Her face contorted with the effort to stem the flow of tears.

“When I was six, an elderly minister and his wife took me in. For the first time in my life—” her voice caught on hiccupping sobs. “I had a home and people who cared for me—really cared. I had a bed to sleep in every night and food I could eat, even when I wasn’t hungry. My little world was finally safe and happy.”

She drew herself up to her full height, set her shoulders, and forced the next words out. “Then the Comanche attacked.”

Neal’s expression ran a gamut of emotions, and she each one, be-cause they still raged in her heart and brought her screaming out of nightmares in the middle of the night.

She forced herself to explain what she seldom spoke of. “You know what that means. You’ve seen the aftermath of a Comanche raid, and you’ll never be rid of the memories. Imagine the horror for a child who witnessed the carnage. A seven-year-old girl shouldn’t have to kill to survive.”

A Gift of Christmas Hope, as a novelette, is available on Amazon.com.
Kindle | KindleUnlimited

and

The story is also available in the anthology Wild Texas Christmas.
Kindle | KindleUnlimited | Print

 

Until next year,

Kaye Spencer

Writing through history one romance upon a time

 
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THE COMANCHERO'S BRIDE by Kaye Spencer – August #blogabookscene #PrairieRosePubs #westernromance

Blog-a-Book-Scene is a monthly themed blogging endeavor from a group of authors who love to share excerpts from their stories. Find us on Twitter with the hashtag #blogabookscene and #PrairieRosePubs.

The theme for August is Alone Again, Naturally. The scene below is from my western romance novel, The Comanchero’s Bride.

Isabel jerked awake. She lay still, listening, but all she heard was the incessant wind worrying the brush and buffalo grass. Heart pounding, she looked to the horses. They stared away from camp, heads high, nostril flared. It hadn’t been her imagination. Whatever had startled them had awakened her. Hurrying to them, she quieted them, listening and watching just as they were. Then the sound came again—the unmistakable crack of distant gunfire. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she knew Mingo was at the heart of the gunfire.

She spent a few minutes soothing the horses while waiting to hear more gunfire, but no sound came. Walking away from camp with the shotgun cradled in the bend of her elbow, she found a slight rise where she could view the land without sky-lining herself. As far as she could see, there was nothing but empty, endless prairie. No sign of Mingo. No sign of another human being. She felt suddenly small and alone, a tiny speck on the vast Texas prairie.

Returning to camp, she prayed nothing had happened to Mingo. She refused to believe he was dead; they’d come too far to fail now, but tears welled from deep inside, and she swallowed hard, clenching her teeth in determination to choke back the crippling fear rising in her heart.

Think. Don’t be a ninny. There’s no reason to assume he won’t return. It’s not dark yet. There’s still time.

But her instincts told her otherwise. He’d been too apprehensive earlier, edgy. Only now did she realize how much he’d downplayed his worry for her sake. Their words before he left, the way he’d lingered with her in his arms, but most of all, the last look he’d taken before he’d ridden away, she now understood were all he had to give her. He went out to kill Grayson with the belief he wasn’t coming back…

The Comanchero’s Bride is available on Amazon.com

Print | Digital | KindleUnlimited

You will also find The Comanchero’s Bride in this boxed set of six western romance novels, Under a Western Sky, which is also available on Amazon.com in digital format or for KindleUnlimited. Click HERE

 

September's Blog-a-Book-Scene theme is Critters and Creatures.

Until then,

Kaye Spencer

Website/Blog  |  Twitter  |   Facebook  |   YouTube 

The Comanchero's Bride by Kaye Spencer – June #blogabookscene #PrairieRosePubs @PrairieRosePubs

The #blogabookscene theme for June is On the road again.  The travel excerpt below is from my western romance novel, The Comanchero's Bride. Mingo and Isabel are moments away from embarking upon a literal run for their lives from Albuquerque in the New Mexico Territory to the safety of Mexico's border.

Excerpt
Mingo guided Isabel across the yard to the barn then set about tightening the cinches, checking the ties around the bedrolls, shaking and pulling at the packhorse’s load, and making doubly sure the saddlebags and canteens were secure.

Over his shoulder, he said, “Slide your shotgun into the scabbard and tie your bags to the saddle or hang them over the saddle horn.” Hearing no movement, he glanced her way and saw that she stood beside her horse, staring at it.

“Isabel?”

“The saddle.”

He looked at it, then at her, and shrugged, motioning for her to mount. “Sí, and that is your horse.”

“But I’ve never ridden on a saddle like that.”

Grinning, he swatted her rear playfully then gave her a leg up. “You will have a few hundred miles to practice.”

She made a face at him as she adjusted her reins and settled her feet in the stirrups. “Why didn’t you ride your palomino here?”

“I need him to be fresh when we cross the border. An old friend is looking after him.”

“You’ve mentioned this friend before.”

He heard the curiosity in her voice. “For now, it is best he remains just an old friend.”

“You’re keeping secrets from me?”

He didn’t hesitate. “I am, but it is for both your protection and his if I am arrested. If we are caught, you cannot be forced to reveal what you do not know, and he would be accused of interfering with the law. I will not jeopardize him and, until we meet at the border, it is better you do not know. I ask for your trust in this.”

She nodded. “You have my trust, always.”

He turned for the door, but stopped when she clutched his shoulder. Looking at her, what he saw in her eyes made him lay a hand on her knee, concerned...

The Comanchero's Bride is available on Amazon.
Print | eBook | KindleUnlimited

The Comanchero's Bride is also included in this boxed set.
Click HERE for more information.

July's Blog-a-Book-Scene theme: Lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer

Until then,

Kaye Spencer

Website/Blog- http://www.kayespencer.com
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SWEET TEXAS CHRISTMAS--Giving a FREE Copy to a Commenter

Say goodbye to October. It was fun and all, but say hello to November. Here comes winter and all those really wonderful holidays.

This year my story, A CHRISTMAS VISITOR, is part of the Prairie Rose Publications Christmas anthology SWEET TEXAS CHRISTMAS. I couldn't be in last year's and I missed that excitement and fun. I love to read anthologies, especially Christmas stories.

So here's a little something about this year's anthology for Christmas. Oh, by the way, there are recipes in the back that were mentioned in the stories. YUM!

And I am giving away a FREE copy in PDF or Kindle Mobi to a commenter.

  SWEET TEXAS CHRISTMAS is an anthology of sweet historical western romances that take place in the state of Texas written by veteran western romance writers: Stacey Coverstone, Sarah J. McNeal, Cheryl Pierson, and Marie Piper.

(my contribution) A Christmas Visitor

Prairie Rose Publications

Releases November 2, 2017

Preorder Buy Link: SWEET TEXAS CHRISTMAS

He left her…Now he’s back…But not for long…

Blurb:

Sterling Thoroughgood was Matilda Barton’s first and only love, but he left her three years ago to seek his fortune in Wyoming. And now he’s come back with a puzzle box as a gift with a secret inside. But as far as Matilda’s concerned, it’s three years too late.

Is love lost forever or does the mysterious puzzle box hold the key to happiness?

Excerpt:

“Don’t you even think about stepping up on this porch, Sterling Alexander Thoroughgood, or I’ll shoot a hole in you big enough for a team of horses to jump through.” The woman wearing a faded blue calico dress aimed the shotgun straight at his heart…and sometimes his liver since she wasn’t holding the shotgun all that steady.

Sterling raised his hands in the air. His bare hands were practically numb from the cold. He glanced up at the slate gray sky. Snow’s comin’. Then he grinned at the woman holding the shotgun. “Merry Christmas to you, too, Matilda.”

She dipped the shotgun for just a moment, but raised it again as if on a second thought. “What do you want here after being gone for three years? Did you break some hearts up in Wyoming? Maybe you have some fathers and brothers gunning for you and you thought you’d come running back here to hide.”

Well, there it was. He’d hurt her when he left and she wasn’t about to let him forget it.

Sarah J. McNeal is a multi-published author of several genres including time travel, paranormal, western and historical fiction. She is a retired ER and Critical Care nurse who lives in North Carolina with her four-legged children, Lily, the Golden Retriever and Liberty, the cat. Besides her devotion to writing, she also has a great love of music and plays several instruments including violin, bagpipes, guitar and harmonica. Her books and short stories may be found at Prairie Rose Publications and its imprints Painted Pony Books, Sundown Press and Fire Star Press. She welcomes you to her website and social media:

Website 

My Amazon Author’s Page

Facebook

Twitter

The Wildings

Fantasy and Dreams Blog

Sweethearts of the West

Prairie Rose Publications Blog

New Release -- TEXAS ROSE by Tracy Garrett -- Giveaway!

Texas, 1847~

A PROMISE MADE…

A loner with a heart of ice and nerves of steel. A dangerous, fast gun for hire. Jaret Walker has only his honor and the reputation he’s built for himself to call his own. When a promise sends him to isolated Two Roses Ranch and Isabel Bennett, the woman he’s come to protect, all he can think of is making her his—in every way. But she’s the kind of woman a man like him can never have—for he’s a man with a past that haunts him, and with no future to share. 

A SCORCHING DESIRE…

The moment Isabel Bennett lays eyes on Jaret Walker, the dreams she’s pushed aside for so long suddenly seem possible. She’s sworn never to marry and give a man control over her ranch. But when Jaret rides into her life, she’s tempted to taste what she’s sworn to give up—a passion that burns out of control with each kiss…desire that consumes them both…and a bold challenge from the future that neither of them believed in…until now…

Previously published as Touched by Love.


“Suspenseful, heart-warming, and…unforgettable.”    
              –New York Times bestselling author Lorraine Heath


“Well-written, entertaining Western. A tender story about two people who find out that belonging to each other is all they need.” 
              –Romantic Times, 4-star review

EXCERPT:

     He breathed a little easier when the general met him in the promenade. Their business went quickly, and with the exchange of gold, a prisoner was delivered into Jaret’s keeping.
     Nick Bennett looked a lot thinner than when Jaret left him here three months ago. This place could do that to a man. Suck him down to dry bones in no time. Jaret had no intention of giving the general time to change his mind. Ignoring Bennett’s glare, Jaret led him out the gate to freedom. “Don’t say a word,” he hissed under his breath. “Just follow me.”
     They mounted and rode double as soon as they cleared the bridge. The mare seemed to want to get away from the prison, too, and kept to a steady trot over the first hill and out of sight. Jaret guided her back to where he’d concealed another horse before he slowed the pace.
     “Why?” The single word held all of Nick Bennett’s hatred and fury and confusion.
     “You didn’t belong in there.”
Bennett accepted Jaret’s help off the horse, balancing against the saddle until his knees would hold him. “I told you that before you brought me here.”
     “True, but I expected you to say that. I’d been told different.” Jaret drew a knife from his boot and sliced through the ropes binding Nick’s wrists.
     “What changed your mind?”
     “I found out someone wants you dead—and I was the way they chose to do it. I don’t hire out for murder.” 

Leave a comment for a chance to win a free ebook.

     

New from Prairie Rose Publications: The Comanchero’s Bride by Kaye Spencer

      My new release, The Comanchero’s Bride, is a western tale of love, jealousy, and revenge. The story was originally published nine years ago as a 40k novella, but even then as I finished writing the story, I knew there was a larger story to be told.  So, over the ensuing years, I wrote and rewrote the story, and expanded it to its current full-length novel edition that releases today with Prairie Rose Publications.

The story-behind-this-story has two components:

• It is a retelling of the Marty Robbins song, Meet Me Tonight in Laredo.
  AND
• The underlying themes of strength and sacrifice are based on the Germanic rune, Uruz.

So what are runes, and what are the lyrics to the song? Well, I happen to have a quick-read article about runes and Marty Robbins and their relationship to The Comanchero’s Bride. It's just a click away:

The Comanchero’s Bride – from idea to book

 What is the story about?

Beautiful heiress Elizabeth Bradford White is exiled to Texas with family friends until she “comes to her senses” and agrees to marry the prominent politico her parents have chosen for her. Grayson Beal is certainly not the man of her dreams—she finds him so revolting she welcomes her exile and makes a new life for herself in south Texas.

When she is approached at a fiesta by dark-eyed, handsome Mingo Valderas, she knows her heart will never be her own again. But Mingo has a checkered past—a reputation as a Comanchero, and a man who is as fast with his knives as he is with his gun. An ex-outlaw with many secrets, Elizabeth gives her trust to him, and their whirlwind courtship begins.

But Grayson Beal will stop at nothing to claim Elizabeth and her inheritance, along with the political influence her parents have. In a deadly cross-country race for her freedom, only one man stands between her and the monster who follows her. Fueled by their love and dreams of a future together, Elizabeth and Mingo stay one step ahead of Beal…but will that be enough?

Excerpt

In one long, powerful stride, Grayson towered over Elizabeth, shaking a thick finger in her face. “I have to be accepted into Denver political circles in order to gain some critical support in Ohio, and I expect you to do your part with entertaining the right people during our stay. You know these activities are vital for my political future. I won’t have it any other way.”

She batted his hand down. “Your political career is only important to you and my parents.” She clenched her fists at her sides, aggravated that she’d allowed herself to be drawn into conversation instead of walking away. It was fully dark and well past time to meet Mingo. “I have a prior commitment.”

Waving her off, Grayson said, “What you have is a duty to your family and to me as my wife, you missed—”

“I am not, nor will I ever be, your wife.”

He pushed right over her interruption. “You missed a gubernatorial inaugural dinner party in Columbus last winter and several other important events since then. I’m tired of making excuses for your absence. I won’t do it any longer.” He leaned forward. “So, congratulations. You’ve made your point. Now, it’s time to come with me and get on with the business of being my wife.”

Fuming, Elizabeth held her ground. “I’m not going to marry you, and I’m certainly not your political or social plaything. Don’t forget that it was you who convinced my father to banish me here. You sent me away from everything I knew—from all the things I thought I needed to be happy. Then I found out that not only do I not need them, I no longer want them. Listen to what I’m saying, Grayson. You’ve made the trip here for nothing. I’m staying in Laredo.”

“This is ludicrous!” His booming voice bounced off the walls. “Our wedding date is set and invitations have been sent.”

He loomed over her like large tree branches bending toward the ground in the raging onslaught of a violent wind. He was a formidable man when he wasn’t angry, and she’d often seen him use his physical size to intimidate people. Although she’d never once backed down from him, she now fought the urge to turn from his wrath.

Elizabeth drew herself up with every ounce of her courage. “Then un-announce it. I’m not marrying you. Not now. Not ever. I won’t—”

Grayson grabbed her, slammed his mouth on hers, crushing her lips as he lifted her almost off her feet. Struggling against the iron grip of his bear-like hands, she wrenched an arm free and slapped him with her gloved hand hard enough to knock his spectacles askew. Yanking out of his grasp, she reeled backward. Adjusting his glasses with deliberate care, he appeared outwardly under control, but Elizabeth knew he was seething, and would find some way to punish her for striking him.

“Had I bedded you a year ago, we would not be having this conversation. We’d be married, and there would be a child on the way.”

Until now, she’d never been frightened of him, only annoyed with his loutish manners toward her and everyone else he considered beneath him, but the lusty gleam in his eyes was new. A repulsive, crawling quiver skimmed along her skin.

She sensed movement behind her an instant before she heard the slight jangle of Mingo’s spurs. Whirling, she saw him in the middle of the room, feet spread, coat opened wide, and his eyes glowing with a dark, lethal fire. Grayson took advantage of her distraction and grabbed her arm. Jerking her back, he held her trapped against his body, and the more she struggled, the tighter he held her.

“Hombre, remove your hands from Isabel, or I will kill you where you stand.”

Recognition registered on Grayson’s face that Mingo didn’t wear his gun belt for show. Beal released her. Mingo motioned for her to move behind him. Grayson took his time looking Mingo over as he rubbed the deep red hand print on his cheek and smoothed his hair down.

“What is this Isabel nonsense? And who the hell are you?”

“Domingo Valderas.” His voice was level and sure. “If any man marries Isabel, it will be me.”

Grayson stared then burst into condescending laughter. “You? Good lord, man, you’re nothing but a Mexican—”

“Be careful with your words, pendejo.”

Buy Links    Barnes and Noble    Smashwords    Kobo    iBooks

Comment to win

I'll give away a digital copy of The Comanchero’s Bride to one commenter. Please leave your contact information with your comment, so I'll have a way to contact you in case I draw your name. I’ll keep this comment-to-win opportunity open until 6:00 p.m. MDT March 19^th, 2016.

 

 Until next time,

Kaye Spencer