One morning this week I sat with my coffee looking out a window into our backyard as two squirrels raced around and around and around the trunk of a big cedar elm tree. It reminded me of the time I ate squirrel stew. I can almost hear you. “Squirrel stew? Yuck!”

Here’s how my culinary adventure came about. As a child I spent lazy Sunday afternoons and some summer days visiting my grandparents in a small Texas town. They had a Sears and Roebuck arts and crafts bungalow, the makings of which had been delivered by train in the very early 1920s. The house came as a kit with a set of plans and several tons of precut boards—That century’s version of “Do it Yourself,” I suppose. My favorite place was the big front porch where I could usually be found in the wooden porch swing with a book in my hand.