Local gardener applies for patent for meat cucumbers!

Ekoj Slooflirpa’s story is incredible

I am always on the search for local history or stories and by Jiminy; I found a jewel out Crosby way for this week’s column.  I’ll be honest and say that this beats the socks off anything Jim Finley has written in a while and not to take away from Wanda Orton’s take on history – this particular fellow is going to put the area on the international map.

Bu-cee’s is a big draw you say?  Ha ha ha!  In the ensuing rush, people will whisk through and forget to buy their precious nuggets and buy gas at Bu-cee’s just to come see what this local visionary has grown.

Crosby denizen and horticulturist Ekoj Slooflirpa’s story is incredible in the literal sense and when the rumor of his amazing skills came up on the BaytownTalks.net forum and what he’s growing, I simply had to hear the story and of course bring it mainstream.   What better way than the Baytown Sun, so I asked local contributor Dufresne, who incidentally also brought to my attention the Bead Rattler of Baytown (which is a whole ‘nother story).

Arriving at his proving ground and passing through his elaborate security checkpoint, which is one old bluetick coonhound, I found the man to be a curious mixture of intense passion, combined with a bizarre social awkwardness, most likely caused by long tenuous solo hours working in one of his twenty-two large greenhouses.  For the sake of the patent, I was asked to not disclose the actual whereabouts of his farm and by golly, I am honoring that.  Seeing his operation, I told him like I told Ken “the Dauber” Pridgeon, “”This thing is simply too big!” and “You won’t be able to hide it!” and “Zounds, man!”

“Yah, I going to poot meat veggies on every table in Texas .  You wait and see young fella, dis combo-ski be more popular than fajitas (which he pronounced fajita-in-ski’s).  His accent was rather peculiar and I wasn’t really familiar with it, but when I asked if he was from –maybe  Channelview, he verbally wandered and finally replied to my question:

“Most folks tink people who can grow tings have a green tum.  Seeing I was born wid fingers that resemble hotdogs, but love to garden, I figured I could combine meat and veggies and possibly, mind you, breach de gap and create a meat-eatin’ vegan-type food,” blurted the future award winning gardener and obvious expert.   

“My folks – Gott bless dare souls, were farmers in our home landski – the Czech Republic, but most people brand me as being Polish.  I not Polish!  Why would I live in Crosby if I wast Polish?  Yah, yah!  I know, many Poles are parading as Czech’s here, but let me axe you someting?  Can a Pole grow a meat cucumber?  Can a Pole move his feet like dis?”  He does a rather bizzare upper body dubstep with his furiously moving brogans resembling a cross between someone in a bed of fire ants and the River dance.

I assured him the fleshy brown bumpy tubes look rather difficult to duplicate, at least with conventional methods and he continued.  “My meatumber-inski’s, which by de way ist a patent-pending trade name, can be eaten by de rich folks wid a steak knife and fancy silver fork, tossed on a steamed hotdog bun wid kraut, or for de Tex-Mex loving crowd, gloriously wrapped in a flour tortilla-ski.  Ist de perfect food!”

He claims to have recently perfected the tasty-looking digits and each greenhouse is a work in progress.  “Now deese,” he points at rows of green and pinkish-looking weiner-bearing plants.  “Deese are wad I call greenie-weenies and will replace dose greasy pork sausages in kolache-inski’s.  Did you know the Czech’s invented de word kolach?  No?  Yah and my greenie-weenies will hab only six calories minus de bun and will promote amazing weight loss.”

I found this truly amazing and asked how he knows this, seeing he doesn’t appear to have a board of scientists on his payroll.  “I am gardener sir.  Gardeners know stuff like dis and it is too technical to cover on simple interview.  Hey, let me show you dese tings!”  He lurches wildly ahead of me and it is the dickens to keep up with the tireless man of the dirt.

He points at a huge steaming pile of “magic droppings” and the odor causes my eyes to burn and I cough out a lung.  “De secret is in de manure!” he says and plunges forward.  I pull my t-shirt up around my nose, as my eyes are watering heavily and follow as best as I can.

We wander over to the next greenhouse and the “meatumbers” here resemble of all things, boudain.  When I loudly point this out, Mr. Slooflirpa ducks down and looks around, pushing his hotdog fingers up to my lips and shushes me.  “I do not want dis to get out just nyet!  My Meatumber-dainski has no rice or pork, only my patented meat-veggies.”  He looks warily around and I do too, but I see only the greenhouse and pinkish bumpy meat-laden plants.  Waving his arms around like a rooster about to crow, he tries in vain to say what is obviously on his heart.  Like I said, he’s as socially awkward as many engineers I know.

“If your, ahem, meatumber-inski becomes as popular as you believe, Mr. Slooflirpa, what is your plans for the area, seeing that you will basically be the main attraction in Harris County?”

“I going to push to hab de city renamed to Crosby-inski to honor my heritage and my tuber-ski’s.”  He is quick to point out they are not real tubers, but do indeed “kinda look like dem”.

Well, there you have it folks, breaking news right here in our area.  I declined to take Mr. Slooflirpa up on his offer to actually taste the “delicious-looking” hybrid, as I had already eaten before the interview, but one thing is for sure, it would probably be real tasty with a side order of Kasza gryczana.

Baytown Bert's Delicious 3 Onion/Meat Pinto Beans

 I’m making a great big pot of beans for a family gathering in Dayton, Texas  tomorrow and I’m listing the ingredients, but not necessarily the exact quantities, for the most part (I don’t roll like that and can’t follow the rules). Adjust the quantities of each to suit your tastes. No one said it was going to be easy, but you will figure it out.

Anyway, my Sis asked me to bring em and I must say they taste vicious delicious.  I'll probably make a steaming pot of rice too.

3 lbs Mexican brand pinto beans

2.5 lbs Ground chuck

1 lb Chappell Hill ™ Texas green onion link sausage

1.5 lbs bacon

4 cans Hatch’s™ Diced Tomatoes

2 cans Hunt's™ Garlic roasted diced tomatoes

Louisiana™ Cajun seasoning

Yellow onion

Purple onion

Green scallion onion

3 beef bouillon cubes

1 container Pico de gallo pre-mixed (fresh)

1 container 3 chilies mixed (fresh)

4 cans chicken broth

2 large scoops sliced pickled jalapeno

2 heaping tablespoons of minced garlic

Meat on a Stick Time - Part 2!

We came, we saw, we camped, and cooked meat on a stick! Last Sunday, we wrapped up a four-day camping trip to Pedernales Falls State Park and due to my many obligations, I am just now finding time to write about it.

My brother TJ Bustem, nephew Andy Tallant, coworker “Big” John Graham, his son “Texas Slim”, and buddy “Texas Shorty” arrived at the quiet and mostly empty park Thursday about 2pm and began the process of setting up our tents and gear. I began worry about rain on this trip a full month before we arrived and I must say; we couldn’t have dialed in better weather, even if we had that ability.

The day before we left, I defrosted Elk and Axis deer back-strap my friend Brian White brought me and soaked it in milk overnight. Draining the milk and washing it, I put it in a one-gallon freezer bag and added Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning. Thursday evening, we skewered the tasty meats and held them over an open fire.

It was delicious! It was more than delicious, it was heavenly delicious.

The milk removed the normal gamey taste and appeared to tenderize the meat also, as it almost fell off the skewers. There we were, hunkered down, each of us as pioneers of old, cooking meat on a stick. Our two 10-year old “Texans” were getting both a taste of outdoor cooking by their own doing and the secure fellowship of men who actually care about their future development.

The Baytown Hiking Fellowship was enjoying its first campout. As stated in the previous Blog, our fellowship was founded last year to honor the memory of my son, Sgt. Nick Marshall and to promote fellowship and personal development. We all agreed we will have many more hikes and campouts, in the future.

I was determined to attempt a number of methods and new equipment on this trip, as possible for my own development and one of these is a knife/magnesium striker device, for lighting fires. In preparation for the first fire, I made cotton balls soaked in melted Vaseline, a fire-starting trick I saw on the Internet, but widely used by the Boy Scouts, hunters and hikers.

We gathered around the fire-pit and I pulled 2 cotton balls out, placed them in the pit and struck the magnesium rod with the edge of the knife blade. Like magic (and to my utter amazement), the cotton balls ignited and just like that, we had the beginnings of our campfire. My only regret is, we failed to video it.

Friday and Saturday we hiked as a group and Geocached. We were blessed with sunny days, but the nights hovered in the mid-30’s, which was fine, albeit cold. I opted to sleep in my tent with no heater, as did Andy and TJ Bustem and although my sleeping bag kept me comfy, my face was cold as ice and my only option was to wrap a fleece blanket around my head each night.

Once again, geocaching is a high tech treasure hunting game using a GPS device to locate “caches”. Pedernales Falls has close to 30 approved caches hidden within its borders and our first objective was to locate a number of them on the 4-mile loop trail. However, the Pedernales River had the only crossing flooded, so we went off to find other caches, eventually locating nine.

By Saturday, our two pint-sized Texans were weary of the slow-pace us seasoned campers were keeping, so Andy took them off to Pedernales Falls for four hours of hiking while TJ Bustem, Big John, and I hiked part of the Wolf Mountain Trail and located more caches. At the Pedernales Popcorn cache we found our first Travel Bug, which is a cool-looking dog-tag thingy and this one was attached to a travel boot ornament. The idea of a travel bug is the person who “grabs” it, carries it to a distant cache according to the wishes of the original owner and all of this is recorded later on geocaching.com.

This Bug is going to be placed Saturday, March 6th on the Goose Creek Trail, helping it on its way to the Appalachian Trail.

Raccoons, accosted our camp as always, but we kept a clean site, so they got very little besides a couple of my favorite Los Toritos bean, cheese and jalapeno tamales and a can of bean dip. Jackrabbits, deer, and even a fox passed through our site as we sat by the fire and who knows what else while we slept.

It was a weary bunch of trail-broke happy campers who rolled up their gear Sunday morning. At this point all of us could have stayed on without reserve, but commitments and our folks at home beckoned. As we drove out of the park, all were making plans for the next adventure.