I have always dreamed of doing great things. Alas, believing that I could excel at any pursuit I chose to tackle, my dreams are often greater than my abilities. I've fantasized about pursuits ranging from singing, to mechanical engineering, to artistic endeavors. I'd like to rope with the best of them, guide the lost, and build structures that inspire.

But more than anything else, I would like to cook.

Without fatalities.

Good cooking is more than a symbolic ideal to those in the road warrior industry. Most long haulers can't define good cooking. But they sure know it when they taste it. I've often heard city folk describing the meals that truck stops serve as "comfort food." I have heard, "Go where the trucker's eat; they know good cookin' " more times than I can shake a stick at.

It would never occur to most four-wheelers that the reason truckers eat where they do is because truck stops are the only places with enough pavement to park their trucks. It has nothing to do with the quality or quantity of the food. It has everything to do with big rig, bigger parking space.

True, consuming such rich, gravy-laden indulgent fare once a year isn't too unhealthy. And I am sure these gut bombs do provide a certain settled comfort. But try the same diet seven times a week, year after year, and the laps around the buffet line become grease-plated pacts with a heart attack. It isn't accidental that the antacid rolls are found next to the cash register, measuring the greater symbolic price one pays for what one actually gets. In a trucker's gut, comfort food usually equals discomfort food. Second verse same as the first, we pay the price for what we get. Sometimes for days.

OK, maybe not always. But often enough. Upset stomachs are frequent, with the average driver getting at least a yearly dance with food poisoning.

If the brutal punishment of the conditions of the nation's highways aren't enough, imagine that initial, after-meal uneasiness, followed by queasiness, followed by…

Oh.

My.

God.

NO!

Why?

Why me?

Why me now?

Dying on the side of the road, outside of someplace civilized like Rawlins, Wyoming, facing the remains of what was probably ingested in Winnemucca, there can be no darker hour in a trucker's life. That horrid moment of reckoning, when comfort food becomes uncomfortable food and finally turns to hazardous waste. Fellow truckers pass, blowing their horns while the wind they've kicked up bends the roadside reflectors to the ground. The prone driver hugging the earth cares not.

It's cold.

He cares not.

In fact, it's damn cold and snowing.

He wishes he could care.

But his only concern is can he make it up into the cab to grab some baby wipes before the next wave hits?

Lift head up.

Begin to move slowly.

Rise to all fours.

Stomach rises.

Hit the deck!

Repeat procedure.

Translation? That would be a no on the baby wipes!

The hell with making miles. During a lull in their intestinal storm, the prone reflect upon their lives. Was it the Tuna Jubilee? Or the Fiesta-Fried, refried, "Those weren't really beans were they" beans? Or the Turkey Tetrazzini with zucchini?

As a driver carefully examines his past, replaying his diet of excess from the graveled highway shoulder, he accepts the truth. Lying there, unable to move for fear of tipping the precarious balance between shelf life and the afterlife, what's the point of determining where "it" came from? The only thing that matters now is that hell hath arrived, it burneth unquenched, and it seems here to stay. Oh yes, and more importantly, the nearest Pepto-Bismol is at least 80 miles down the road.

Heaven help thy sorry-assed plight.

Yes indeed, food poisoning is feared more than the DOT, the CHP, or being lost in Harlem. As the stomach settles and reality dawns that reality bites, (no pun intended,) a driver begins damage control. Consulting the atlas showing every potential emergency pull-off, pickle park (rest area) and every last possible place of big rig refuge, trip planning becomes art. During moments like these, drivers rediscover their lost conversations with God.

"Oh dearest Lord, to whom it only appeared I turned away from and forgot… please remember me in my darkest hour since last year when this happened after "Five Arby's Roast Beefs for Five Bucks." Hear my desperate petition, oh God! Forgive me for partaking of the cursed, ill-begotten, not made, "All You Can Eat" Meat Loaf. Oh Lord, I beg of thee, if there is but one closed pull off, rest area or place of refuge on my journey, I shall surely die."

Or as it says in III Timothy 1-3 "Once again thy ground shall support thy weight and all thy heavens shall salute the force of this vile evilness. Through this trial I shall curse future fast food foolishness and curse all those who brought me to this wretched place. My hours shall be filled with the torment unbeknownst until now by man."

Prone, heaving, and dehydrated over the mud flaps, I've begged for the rapture to just hurry up and get on with it before my stomach ruptured. I have lain submissive before the rest area's great and unforgiving porcelain altar. I have recanted all other Gods. I have seen the Virgin Mary's image in the bun of an Arby's roast beef sandwich, and the Shroud of Turin in a slice of Subway turkey. Confessing my sins, bargaining away my future and once, even promising to forgo all future lust if God would just please take me home, I swore time and time again that I would change. Now!

"Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone."

I only wish I were that strong.

Inevitably the next night I was back for more. Trading in my Flying J "Frequent Fueler" coupons for chicken-fried chicken with hush puppies.

I can not hold the truck stops accountable. For I too have spent time in the kitchen. And have set loose these same horrific forces upon others. Innocent people whom I love. And who, until the full force of my culinary abilities hit them, had loved me.

"Vengeance is mine," sayeth the Lord! Unless Tim is in the kitchen. Then just modify that: I cook, therefore I am…I cook, therefore you…are dead.

I come by my lack of culinary skills naturally. We Lutherans just don't do the whole cooking thing. Our gardens in Norway froze long before anything was harvested, so forget produce. We couldn't become vegetarians because nothing ever grew long enough to make it past the first hard freeze of winter in June. Peppers? Ha! Spice? Are you kidding? The closest thing we had to pepper was the seaweed that came in with the tides in the fjords. So we ate fish. In endless ways did we eat fish. And in endless ways did we wonder why we ate so much fish. Like I said, my religious heritage was no help in the cuisine department. Nor was my being a descendent of Norway.

So, without traditions to guide me, I had to boldly go where no Lutheran had gone before; to forgo reality and blaze my own original trail. Approaching all cooking from this perspective, I have repeated to myself, "This time it will be different."

All mental references to previous culinary disasters, missteps and portioning goof-ups, I bury. Look forward, not backward. And in the process, overlook all acknowledgment to the power of recipes. Norwegians hate following directions. Recipes are for followers not leaders. These formulaic rules limit creativity.

Thus, as in all other endeavors, when it comes to cooking, I strike out on my own. Again, no pun intended.

For years I have thought about food while trucking down the road. I have considered ways to improve great dishes that I know well (Macaroni and Cheese.) And I have thought of ways to improve more difficult and challenging dishes (Hamburger Helper.)

Occasionally as I drove, brilliant ideas rolled across the dash and became the impetus for new and exciting creations originating from the High Mountain Ranch Culinary Institute. Visualize Macaroni and Cheese with Hamburger Helper.

About every tenth try I actually create something edible, even tasty. But most of the time, the resounding question directed toward the kitchen is, "Tim, what is that smell?" Followed hours later by, "Tim, I don't feel so well."

Yet Norwegian Lutherans never give up on anything. We don't understand the meaning of the word "No." We dream impossible dreams. We fantasize about making the world a better, tastier place. We take our dreams seriously.

That is how the "Tuckered Truckers Cooking Show" came to be.

~ ~ ~

One late October day, driving eastbound on I 40 in the shadow of New Mexico’s Mt. Taylor, I thought about truck stop food. Thanksgiving lay on the horizon and already the stores were stocking up on ungodly produce offerings like sweet squash and carrots, and even more unnatural items like lettuce. Thinking about Thanksgiving and my infamous cooking, I wondered if the country might be ready for new traditions. Something different. Something that might truly honor our unique American heritage of fine fried cuisine.

Inspired, and smack dab in the midst of the new information highway, I saw these new traditions spreading like everything else in the new economy: by Internet and infomercial. Ideas formed across the dash and took over the horizon of the windshield. Shifting came reflexively as one idea spawned another equally dreadful concept.

"That's it" I screamed. I could do a cable access cooking show! How cool is that? Sponsored by Crisco, I'd call it the "Tuckered Truckers Cooking Show." My theme would be, "Because once a driver sets out in a big rig, he never sees his shoes again."

My show would be dedicated to making sure that our "rolling roach coach" road food also became the staple all across America. I could see it already: Red checkered tablecloths adorned with fresh silk floral arrangements. A pair of his and his microwaves dominating the kitchen set. All of the food originating from a pre-frozen box.

Prepared live, the meal would touch all the important major trucker food groups: freshly frozen, deep fried, hot greased, heat-lamped, and of course microwavable. Food minus any nutritional value, just like a truck stop diner.

But what would I prepare for my debut show? Passing an obese C.R. England driver, I was suddenly inspired. "That's it," I thought. I would do an entire episode based on a "Chicken Fried" theme! Everything would be…just like…not homemade.

The show would go like this:

The lights would come up and the announcer would introduce me. I’d run onto the stage throwing buckets of theater-style hot buttered microwavable popcorn into the audience with a big smile and a bigger wave. Appearing in my finest "Hee Haw" era western shirt, and accompanied by a musical intro of banjos and diesel air horns, I'd conclude my grand entrance with a giant "whoosh" exactly like the sound of released air brakes. My lovely assistant Verona, appearing behind me, would be dressed in the most to-die-for cow print muumuu.

I should say that Verona, formerly Vern, is an accomplished cook in her own right. She has won many culinary awards, most of them while she was still a he, but that’s a different story. Her kitchen honors include the 1999 San Quentin "Appetizer of the Year" award for a delightful "Succotash Sucks Sushi" served at the prison’s annual, "A Night with the Warden" benefit dinner. She/he also took a blue ribbon at the 2000 Sacramento Street Fair for a most creative "Dumpster Diving Meal for Twelve." And was a runner up at the 2000 Bite of Seattle in the "Best ‘Homo’ Brew Home Brew" category.

The audience roars with wild anticipation and as their applause dies I begin the show with an appetizer. All cooking shows have appetizers. But what could I create that hadn't been done before? It had to be flavorful. Colorful. With a hint of heavy truck stop texture.

An idea dawned: Double-battered, chicken-fried chicken wings! Marinated in bacon grease drippings. Yum! Yum!

On a roll while rolling down the road, more ideas roared to life in my mind. As the passing Kentucky Fried Chicken billboards kept time, inspiration came faster and faster.

Next, I considered the first course. The salad! Yuck. Truckers hate vegetarian rabbit food. The biggest challenge of the whole show would be the salad.

Frowning, I thought about the options. How could I insure that my salad was completely devoid of any ingredients that might be confused with natural, nutritional, or necessary? A "Tuckered Trucker" salad couldn't be like any other salad. It HAD to be processed. From all my days on the road, I knew that truck stops have one simple rule: Nothing within the contents of a truck stop salad bar should be fresh, green, or contain any natural fiber. This elemental truth ensured that any salad made on my cooking show appealed to the denial factor. "If you don't know what you're eating, it can't hurt you."

Unfortunately, reflecting on all the "salads" I'd consumed over the years at the coffee counter, I drew a big blank. I couldn't think of a single thing to make. What would Alice on the Brady Bunch do at a time like this? Or Mel on Alice? I could just see "Flo" sashaying out of the kitchen, the ultimate special guest. "Kiss my Grits!" would be the title of that episode. "A thousand ways to skin a potato. And a man."

But like me, Flo would be clueless on how to concoct a true trucker salad.

I resumed thinking about my options.

Tuna salad? Nope, it wasn't fried.

Chicken salad? No. Ditto that.

Chicken-Fried Chicken Salad? Hmmmm.…maybe.

Naturally the term salad implies "healthy". What kind of salad could I create that would be an artery choker and yet still sound appealing to the heart doctor back home monitoring traveling trucker Charlie's menu? For a few minutes, I admitted I was stumped. But inspired by a billboard proclaiming a 24-hour Chinese food buffet up ahead in Gallop, I brightened. YES! Oriental Fried Noodle Salad with mixed nuts and Tabasco sauce. Perfect.

And even better, IT had never been done before!

Licking my lips, I imagined the delight oozing from the studio audience as the dish was presented on camera, complete with a fortune cookie garnish. Applauding enthusiastically, the audience would give me a huge bubba-filled standing ovation.

After the salad, the main course would be a snap. As the camera slowly watched the creative chef genius at work, (that would be me,) I created culinary masterpieces. Whipping together cuisine neither lite nor less filling, these meals defined visually stunning. Breathtaking even.

As in CPR, cardiac-arrest, breathtaking.

Careful attention to detail made each dish seem better than the last. Garnished with care, served lovingly, the camera caught each entree as audience members leaned forward in anticipation. Those guests lucky enough to be chosen to sit at the little checker-boarded kitchen table were the envy of all.

The menu was truly unforgettable. After presenting the mysterious initial post salad dish of microwavable fried barbecued pork, I served chicken-fried chicken sautéed with beef and sausage drippings covered in whole cream gravy.

A man in the third row drooled.

This dish was complimented with fried hushpuppies on the side, ladled with a chicken-fried vegetable medley of double-battered summer squash, carrots, and cauliflower. And topped off with chicken-fried cheese sticks and jalapeno poppers. My fuller-than-full meal deal was not only hard to top. It was over the top.

The "guests" at the red checkered table ate happily. One hungry lady licked her arms as grease rolled down from a succulent serving of squash. Listening as their satisfied, batter fried, crispy crunchy chewing serenaded the audience, I waited for any signal that might hint they were satiated.

But they wanted more. Waiting for the microwaves to beep, the audience listened as an announcer plugged certain important sponsors. Weight Watchers. Jenny Craig. Garage sale tips for thrifty thirty-somethings on the next Donny and Marie Show.

"Seven! Six! Five!"

I jumped up and down. Verona jumped up and down.

"Four! Three! Two! One!"

Beep. Beep. The magical moment arrived, signaling that the microwave dishes were done. Everyone screamed and then when I peeked inside a door and uttered, "OOOOHHHHhhhhhh. It's not done yet…" The audience moaned in unison. This was just too much!

Finally, after we could tease them no more, Verona and I pulled out another round of entrees to the delight of everyone. Audience members begged for the recipes as I displayed the nearly scorched dishes, fried just a little too brown. Applause roared through the studio.

Working them as all good hosts do, I pretended to be modest with an "Aw shucks, is all that clapping for me?" I acted like I was shy and embarrassed by all the attention.

I made them beg for the recipes. They wanted it bad. But they liked wanting it bad. Finally, when everyone was on the verge of rapture, I yelled out as loud as I could, "Ancient trucker secret!" Denied, their fondest desires unmet, the audience groaned. Who said food isn't sexual?

The people at the little tables ate their little portions while I demonstrated microwave safety.

Never put French bread bags in a microwave. Never leave forks in a microwave. Never put anything still living in a microwave. "Dishwasher safe" does not mean microwave safe, although "microwave safe" is usually dishwasher safe.

The show seemed near its end. But of course, they knew there would be more. There is always "more" where truck stop food is concerned.

The audience was now standing in their seats chanting, "More, Tim! More!"

How could I finish such a splendid meal? What would I do for a grand finale? What "something" could I create that would send my guests away truly satisfied? What would Betty Crocker do? As I drove, I mentally detailed all the possible combinations that a tuckered trucker chef could combine to creatively cap off my fabulous feast. I couldn't just leave them sitting at the table without a proper sendoff.

My mind racing, I thought about dessert. Copenhagen Cheesecake Chew was out. Double Chocolate Chip Twinkie-Filled Cookies? They'd already been done. Desperate for a doozy of a dessert, I tried to think of the worst possible truck stop confection I could conceive.

Flan? Too bland.

Rice Pudding? That sounded too healthy.

French Silk Pie? No, I couldn't do that either. Too gay, even for me. We truckers are polyester types. No silk ever gets near our sleeper. And besides, if the show aired in the southern states, the Baptists would picket the studio because the title of the dessert was too sexually suggestive; part of the dreaded "Gay Agenda."

Suddenly, the Dairy Farmers of New Mexico rode in on my radio and saved my fantasy.

"Got Milk?" they asked in an ad featuring The Dixie Chicks.

I felt like Moses, led to the Promised Land. I looked down on my imaginary audience as they awaited their deliverance into cardiac arrest, each with a big smile on their pudgy little face.

"Got Milk?" I asked the cameraman?

"Got Milk?" I asked my audience?

"Got milk?" I asked my lovely assistant Verona.

"No!" they screamed in unison.

With the pizzazz of an infomercial God, I enticed them to the grand finale. It was going to be all that their carnal dreams had ever hoped for. I tingled all over.

"Well then," I paused.

It was a very long pause.

I smiled.

Everyone held their breath, licking their lips, anticipating the grand finale of the Tuckered Truckers Cooking Kitchen Show. Verona leaned against me, cooing as her muumuu caught the stage lights.

I screamed, "We got Fried Chicken Fried Ice Cream!"

Cheers erupted from the audience. They clapped in rhythm while I prepared the dish. "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!" the audience shouted in unison.

All over the studio, audience members fainted, their rapture arrived. What could be better than Rocky Road ice cream? Especially FRIED Rocky Road ice cream? This was a trucker’s dream dessert. As the audience spooned cream and crust, I looked out over them and felt their love. Licked lips, oversized hips, and requests for seconds reaffirmed the one true feat of the Tuckered Truckers Cooking Show: that it was ALL GOOD!

As I watched my bloated audience leave the studio, I imagined a scout from Dolly Parton's "DollyWood" coming up to me and asking if I might be interested in taping a live show from the her East Tennessee amusement park. "Live from Dollywood, The Tuckered Trucker's Cooking Show presents "Cooking Breasts!"

I groaned, missing a gear as I chuckled. I was just too much.

My fantasy ended as I looked down at my stomach.

It was sticking out. Almost touching the steering wheel. I was getting fat just thinking about all this. Food still danced in my head. Yet I wasn't smiling anymore. I was on the verge of a diabetic coma.

Another series of concepts popped into my head. They were far worse. But they too, had at one time or another, involved infomercials.

Diet.

Exercise.

"No medical exam required" full term Life Insurance.

~ ~ ~

Thankfully the Tucker Trucker Cooking Show concept has never gone from my mind to action. There are laws against public endangerment. Yet it doesn't negate the reality that all across North America truckers give up a lot to keep our country moving. Even the best-intentioned of us put on a few pounds in spite of determined efforts to eat healthy. Sometimes a grilled chicken breast with the heart next to it on the menu just can't compete against the meat loaf special. Either visually or mentally.

Over the years I have witnessed countless friends leave truck driving school well-intentioned and skinny and then go through the horrible ordeal of CTWG (Chronic Trucker Weight Gain.) Exercise is one solution, but try explaining to dispatch that the load is late because you ran an extra two miles because of what you ate.

What I find most frustrating is that despite ample evidence that these foods will kill you, many truck stops continue to offer overpriced, unhealthy meals that at any other location would be rejected as an insult. Compare the food and price at national chain restaurants with the food and the prices at the local truck stops, and it quickly becomes apparent that truckers are paying dearly for the privilege of parking on all that asphalt. And paying a hefty dietary exchange price as well.

I dream of the day when enough vacationing travelers complain to force market change. Where beauties in beamers with Nebraska plates demand coffee that pours rather than has to be hit out of the mug. A truck stop where tuckered truckers actually treasure time at the salad bar rather than ponder whether that was a strawberry or a raspberry or maybe a plum that just landed on their "all you can eat, ain't it sweet?" plate.

And as I pulled into the Santa Rosa T/A truck stop and set the brakes, I dreamed that maybe tonight the chicken fried chicken might just be fat-free.

Like I said, I was dreaming.

Damnation Obsessive Cookies come to your table made with the truest spirit of the West. Imagine campfires, fine sunsets, and the company of good friends enjoying a sweet treat after a day of rounding up cows for fall gathering.

Also imagine serving these while entertaining the local volunteer fire department as a way of thanking them for saving your house.

Ingredients: One Alberston's Baking Aisle

Some Eggs

Baking soda

Almond Extract

Cell phone for 911 calls

Vanilla Extract

Probably a small bag of flour

Brown sugar

White sugar

Quaker Oats

Bottle of Wine

Fire extinguisher

Butter

One Bag Heath Chips

One bag Peanut Butter Chips

One Bag Mint Holiday M&M's

One Bag Mini M&M's

One Bag Chocolate Chips

One bag Reese's Pieces

One bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

One bag chopped almonds

Salt

Step One: Visit the baking aisle of your local grocery store. Debate what kind of sweet chips you wish to add to your cookies. Give up. Grab a bag of each variety. Finish obtaining the rest of the ingredients. On the way home stop by the insurance agent and make sure the homeowner's policy is current.

Step Two: Preset oven to 350.

Step Three: Estimate how many eggs you will need…I usually start with four. Combine eggs and four sticks of butter in a large mixing bowl. Beat slowly. Open the bag of flour. Look for the measuring cup. Where is it? Shit, never mind. Pour flour slowly into spinning bowl and count. "One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three. One thousand four." That should be enough.

Step four: Open Quaker Oats. Pour at least as much in as you did with the flour. Double check to make sure. At this point the beater should be struggling. If the mixer smokes you know you have the right amount.

Step Five: Add another stick of butter and begin looking for another bowl to separate ingredients before the mixer quits working.

Step Six: In two bowls add salt, sugar, and brown sugar. Try to get the same amount in each bowl. Return to mixer. Ignore burning smell and smoke. Resume mixing. Continue to add ingredients. Frantically look for more bowls. Desperately attempt to keep each bowl’s amount of ingredients equal. Give up and pour a glass of wine.

Step Seven: Run to neighbor and request additional cooking utensils.

Step Eight: Continue adding sticks of butter and eggs to facilitate blending. Remember: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. Add everything else that remains. Add the remaining wine to the batter to assist the beaters.

Step Nine: Locate cookie sheets and begin to scoop small spoonfuls of cookie dough onto the baking sheet. Try to resist becoming too overwhelmed that there are now 15 bowls of dough waiting to be baked. Place the first two cookie sheets in the oven and set timer for twelve minutes. Forget to hit "Start Timer." Begin scooping dough onto remaining cookie sheets. Turn on the TV to "Rosie."

Step Ten: Savor the smell of your cooking as cookies are baking and Rosie discusses natural childbirth. Phone rings. Answer it.

Step Eleven: Walk outside to talk so you can hear the person on the other end of the line. Forget about the cookies. Until the smoke alarm sounds. Tell the person on the other end that you have to go. Run into kitchen. Retrieve burning cookies. Run back outside and throw cookies into the brush. Run back inside to extinguish oven. Run back outside to hook up garden hoses to extinguish small brush fire. Open all the windows to air out the house.

Step Twelve. Turn off TV. Alert Sheriff's Department and Department of Natural Resources that smoke must be coming from neighbors who are burning illegally. Disconnect Phone.

Step Thirteen: Try it again after resetting the circuit breakers in the utility room. Remember to hit "START TIMER" this time after setting the timer to twelve minutes.

Step Fourteen: Walk back outside to check on status of formerly smoldering brush. Say in a very loud voice, "OH MY GOD!"

Realize it's not out.

Run around seemingly without a clear purpose.

Step Fifteen: Repeat Step Eleven. In reverse. Frantically reconnect phone. Alert Sheriff's Department and Department of Natural Resources that you were mistaken. Fire now definitely appears to be on your property. Ask if they have any tankers on standby. Apologize for the confusion.

Step Sixteen: Gather remaining uncooked dough and evacuate home. Knock on neighbor's door and inquire if it might be possible to borrow their oven while the fire department attempts to extinguish the 15 acres next door.

Step Seventeen: Enjoy! While of course commenting on how low in fat these delicious cookies must be and while watching your former home next door burn.

Serves an entire fire department.