For those from Texas and parts of the South this menu will come as no surprise but we had the traditional New Years Day meal, corn bread, black eyed peas, collard greens with ham hocks, and ham plus a couple of new twists, raccoon and wild rice, not to mention some French vino.

My son, Adam, and a buddy went night hunting a couple of nights ago using our relatively new Ranger EV, with pigs as the main object with anything else that was legal on the list. No pigs, but they managed to kill a couple of rabbits, a beaver (the lone survivor (I hope) of a long battle of attrition on one of my lakes) and a MONSTER RACCOON. All kidding aside, this coon was HUGE. He weighed between 20 and 25 pounds. In retrospect, I wish we had weighed him, he might have been a record.

I had eaten coon one time about 55 years ago and was not particularly looking forward to renewing the experience, but Adam said, "The local blacks pay good money for them to eat, so they must be good". My ever patient wife said, "I'll cook it, if you clean it." So being the ever patient Dad, I told Adam, "Go clean it and the rabbits."

Amazingly it was really damn good. Tasted closer to cabrito (young goat, usually roasted or barbecued) than anything else.

For those who care, she browned the coon pieces after rolling in flour with salt and pepper, than boiled it for several hours in a water, chicken broth, salt, garlic, bay leaves, and pepper solution. She only cooked about 1/3 of it because that was enough for us for a meal. It was falling off the bone tender and very tasty. I'll certainly save the next one I kill.