Tales Of Deer Camp and Beer Bread, 2010

Got an F-U phone call for my son awhile ago.

Seems he and my deer hunting buddy Alan have a history of pulling practical jokes on one another. Well, until last weekend Alan and my son had an unofficial truce going on. I gather that's over now.

Now, one of the staples of our deer camp is beer bread; and another is chili. Alan is the guy who made the chili the ONE night my brother spent with us in deer camp. My brother vowed never to return after we all sat down to some deer camp chili that Saturday night. Everyone ate their chili without incident except my brother, who broke out in sweats, palpitations, and tears, swear words, and mystical incantations before he finished his bowl. It was only about a year later that we finally learned that Alan had added the amount of cayenne reserved for an entire POT of chili into my brother's single bowl. My brother still thinks we have an inhuman capacity to ingest fiery creations while at deer camp, and being the type of manly men we are, we've said nothing to dispel that notion.

My son is a fan of all things spicy...so a week or so ago I took him to peruse the well-stocked hot sauce section at the local Bass Pro Shop. He didn't buy any hot sauce; instead, he picked up a mix for beer bread. I don't recall the name, but I believe it was something to do with scorched donkey parts. All I noticed when my son was mixing it up was that the package contained what I considered to be a HUGE pouch of cayenne or similar pepper spice. [As a culinary note, my son made a special trip to the liquor store to pick up a regional brew by the Bluegrass Brewing Company, called "Horse Pi$$" beer, to make the bread. Nothing but the best for OUR deer camp, apparently.] In contrast, our normal beer bread at deer camp consists of self-rising flour, sugar, and beer, and is usually a non-threatening side item served with chili, as well as a base for an occasional sandwich.

So my son made a loaf of that stuff from the mix with the donkey on the package. No, it wasn't a brown colored bread; it actually had a reddish cast from all the flecks of peppery potency throughout. After chasing down about six slices with 12 cold brewskis, my son asked me to deliver the remainder to Alan at deer camp last weekend.

So how'd it go for Alan? After telling me that "it's on" once again, Alan proceeded to tell me how he believes that not only did the beer bread lead him to sweat profusely, to suffer a red face, watery eyes and a runny nose, and to ingest an inhuman number of barley pops to get it down--because at deer camp, we NEVER, EVER back down from a challenge [at least not the FIRST time]--but he's pretty sure he melted some porcelain bathroom fixtures [and possibly some important body parts as well] as he bid adios to the digested remains of said beer bread the following day. And apparently deer hunting buddy Gary suffered a similar fate.

So I guess the game is afoot once again. Of such adventures are the tales of deer camp woven.