Published: April 21, 2008 12:46 am         

A Saturday to say thank you

The handmade sourdough and buttermilk biscuits were well on their way to being finished, as they baked over open wood fires inside cast iron Dutch ovens.

Nearby, cooks were dropping what would soon become chicken fried steaks into iron skillets filled with oil, skillets which were also sizzling atop wood fire pits.

Several members from one of the Sunday School classes at Highland Terrace Baptist Church were anxiously awaiting the meal, sipping tea while they spent a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon being entertained by live acoustic, bluegrass and fiddle music; by playing dominoes or horseshoes, or just taking a leisurely stroll around Money Lake.

In short, it was the picture of a leisurely weekend afternoon.

Haskell Maroney wasn’t taking it easy, however. Maroney was in charge of the crew from the Chisum Trails Cowboy Church in the Lamar County town of Powderly which provides a chuck wagon meal service. Maroney’s was the task of overseeing the cooking and the serving all of the items which made up the menu. He was preparing enough food for up to 80 people and while it got a little steamy working over the blazing fires, none of the chuck wagon crew were complaining. After all, it was a way of saying thank you to the folks from Highland Terrace.

Maroney explained how his brother Billy is a member of the Greenville congregation, from which volunteers came and helped finish out the inside of the new home of the church in Powderly.

“So, we just decided to come out here and cook for them,” Maroney said.

His operation pays as much attention to detail of the traditional ways of chuck wagon cooking as possible, from the recipes to the ingredients to the types of utensils used by wagon trains in the old west.

“We try to do it as authentically as we can,” he said, adding the chuck wagon is available for various private events, by contacting the church by phone at 903-249-2901 or through e-mail at chisum_trailsscc@yahoo.com.

As the biscuits were being brought off the fire and the steaks were being turned, the music from one of the bands wrapped up to appreciative applause from all the guests. Maroney kept on working, although he did take time to notice just how pretty the whole scene was.

“The Lord has blessed us with a beautiful day,” Maroney said.