The crawfish etouffee from Bowl & Kettle is easy to make – just add hot water. Pam LeBlanc photo

Add this one to the “Things I Never Expected to Say” file: I just discovered a fantastic dehydrated version of crawfish etouffee that’s perfect for backpacking.

Even better? It’s made in Austin.

I tested the meal, made by Austin-based Bowl & Kettle, on a recent car camping trip. My husband Chris, who is Cajun, and I shared the meal. It looked different from the moment I tore the pouch open: visible-to-the-eye curls of green onion, real crawfish (sourced from Louisiana!), and seasonings the color of fall leaves.

We love to backpack and have long been fans of another Austin-based company that makes camp meals, PackIt Gourmet. I’ve repeatedly ranked their State Fair Chili as the best just-add-hot-water meal I’ve ever eaten.

But they’ve got competition. I’m now putting Bowl & Kettle’s crawfish etouffee in a tie with PackIt Gourmet’s chili as the two best options available. They’re both better than the salted cardboard that used to be the only choice out there.

Brett and Sarah Bowlin founded Bowl & Kettle, which makes dehydrated meals for backpackers. Pam LeBlanc photo

Sarah and Brett Bowlin, founders of Bowl & Kettle, started selling their meals in 2024. Before backpacking 2,300 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail two years ago, they bought a freeze-dryer and made 200 meals to test in the field. They mailed the food to points along the way, and when they got a shipment, they always reached for the etouffee first.

But why etouffee?

Sarah’s father grew up in Baton Rouge, and when she was a girl, her mother made an easy version of crawfish etouffee as a one-pot meal. Brett admired the simplicity of the recipe and how good it tasted. He loves to experiment in the kitchen, and he adapted it for backpacking.

“The key difference is we use a roux that gives more of a thickness,” he says.

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I’m here to tell you it’s good. My husband also gave it the thumbs up – although he suggests skipping the packet of Louisiana hot sauce that comes with the meal. “It’s an insult to the chef,” he says.

The crawfish etouffee has visible curls of green onion and crawfish from Louisiana. Pam LeBlanc photo

It’s flavorful and colorful and doesn’t taste too salty (my number one complaint with backpacking meals.) It tastes like actual food – from Louisiana. Plus, I like the John Muir quote on the bottom of the package: “Sheep, like people, are ungovernable when hungry.”

Bowl & Kettle’s crawfish etouffee gets a thumbs up from Pam LeBlanc. Pam LeBlanc photo

Sarah and Brett both have other full-time jobs but are hoping to make Bowl & Kettle their full-time business. They recently rented a larger space in a commercial kitchen and bought a larger freeze dryer, which will allow them to increase production from 350 to about 1,000 meals a month.

A John Muir quote is printed on the bottom of the package. Pam LeBlanc photo

The company also makes and sells a dehydrated version of chicken tikka masala (I haven’t tried it yet) and street corn grits (tried, also good.) The etouffee sells for $15.95, the tikka masala sells for $16.95, and the grits are $13.95.

Bowl & Kettle products are available directly from the website. They’re also sold Mountain Chalet in Colorado Springs; Mellow Moon Lodge in Del Norte, Colorado; the French Grocer in Marathon, Texas; Sad Monkey Mercantile in Canyon, Texas; The Grove in Franklin, North Carolina; and

Garage Grown Gear, online.

A section of the Butler Trail will close starting Nov. 26 as crews stabilize the bank. Photo courtesy The Trail Foundation

Heads up, trail users.

A section of the Ann and Roy Butler Trail along Barton Creek across from Lou Neff Point will be closed starting Nov. 26, as crews work to stabilize a 230-foot slope that partially collapsed in May 2018.

During the closure trail traffic will detour around the baseball fields and onto separated paths on Toomey Road. A crew member with a flag will periodically stop cyclists and pedestrians to allow construction traffic to cross.

The closure will last until sometime next summer.

The city of Austin’s Watershed Protection Department, the Austin Parks and Recreation Departments and the
Trail Conservancy are working together on the project, which is funded and managed by the Watershed Protection Department.

Pam LeBlanc’s mother and sister pose at the entrance of the Maurice Sendak exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. Pam LeBlanc photo

I busted my mom out of her assisted living facility and took her on a bit of a wild rumpus this week – an outing to see the new exhibit about illustrator Maurice Sendak at the Denver Art Museum.

You probably know Sendak’s most famous work, the leering, dancing monsters of “Where the Wild Things Are.” The children’s book tells the story of a boy named Max, who sails away to find the “wild things” after he’s sent to bed without dinner.

I knew all the pictures in that book by heart, but my subconscious was also familiar with other Sendak characters. There’s Rosie, who dresses up like a glamorous singer, and Pierre, who doesn’t care about anything until he meets a lion.

Sendak was born in Brooklyn in 1928 and spent much of his childhood watching the world go by outside the window of the room where he was bedridden. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland, and Sendak lost several members of his extended family to the Holocaust.

Read more: Explore the best preserved ghost town in Montana in Garnet

The Disney film Fantasia sparked his interest in illustration when he was 12. His professional career started when he was 20, and he created window displays for FAO Schwarz. He illustrated more than a hundred books during the next 60 years.

While my sister and I pushed my mom through a maze of more than 400 of Sendak’s original artworks at the exhibit, the biggest collection ever on public display, I got lost in a jungle of memories. It’s funny how those illustrations were so familiar to me, even though I hadn’t seen them for years.

The exhibit also includes video interviews with Sendak, information about his work as a theater set designer, and a piece of a Thanksgiving parade balloon shaped like one of the Wild Thing monsters.

Another highlight? An entire section devoted to his love for his dog Jennie, a scrappy white terrier named Jennie, who appears in most of the books he illustrated between 1954 and 1967. The dog takes a starring role in “Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or There Must Be More to Life,” a tribute to her just before her passing.

Sendak died in 2012. He was preceded in death by his long-time partner, Dr. Eugene Glynn, a psychiatrist and art critic.

The exhibit continues through Feb. 17. Tickets start at $27. Member tickets are $5. For more information go to https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/exhibitions/wild-things-art-of-maurice-sendak.

A hike along the Shoal Creek Trail, which leads through Pease Park in downtown Austin, is part of this year’s Oboz Trail Experience. Photo by Pam LeBlanc

Lace up your hiking boots, folks, and come join me for a walk. The Oboz Trail Experience is under way in Austin, and I’m leading a qualifying hike on Oct. 26.

This year marks the fourth year of the event in Austin, which rewards participants for completing a series of hikes around the city. The more you hike, the more chances you earn for winning cool prizes.

I’m in the thick of writing an urban hiking guide to Austin and have spent a lot of time this year exploring city trails. One of the oldest is the Shoal Creek Trail, which includes lots of hidden highlights, from a huge troll created by Danish artist Thomas Dambo to the site of an old Comanche camp and the location of a long-gone bath house.

At 11:30 a.m. Oct. 26, I’ll lead a short hike from Duncan Park, 900 West Ninth Street, to Whole Earth Provision Co., 1014 North Lamar Boulevard. It’s part of the Shoal Creek Social, which also includes a native plant tour at 9:30 a.m., a history tour at 10:30 a.m., and an infrastructure hike at 12:30 p.m.

Read more: Channel your inner cowgirl at Paws Up in Montana

Danish artist Thomas Dambo made this troll statue in Pease Park using mostly recycled wood. Pam LeBlanc photo

Even better, it counts as one of the official Oboz Trail Experience hikes. It’s the fourth year of the program in Austin, which encourages people to explore more than 100 miles of area hiking routes during October.

To participate, sign up (it’s free!) online at https://austin.oboztrailexperience.com/Welcome.

Once you’ve registered, you can see a list of mapped trails, form hiking groups, and chat with other participants. Trails can be completed in any order, and some are broken into segments. Participants must log all their hikes on either a GPS device or smartphone activity tracking app. Your progress will be posted on a leaderboard.

All hikes must be completed by Oct. 31.

A wrap party is planned for 5-7 p.m. Nov. 2 at Whole Earth Provisions, complete with drawings for Oboz boots, Whole Earth gift cards, and other more. The event is sponsored by Oboz Footwear, Whole Earth Provision Co. and the Hill Country Conservancy.

For more information go to https://austin.oboztrailexperience.com/FAQs.

Participants in the Cowgirl Roundup at Paws Up in Montana gather at a chuckwagon dinner. Pam LeBlanc photo

I returned from the Fall Cowgirl Roundup at The Resort at Paws Up in Montana with cow poop on my boots and a little swagger in my stride.

That’s what comes from four days spent horseback riding, fly fishing, whip cracking and more. The event is held each spring and fall at the luxury resort in Montana.

Without further ado, here are my 10 favorite things about this year’s Cowgirl Roundup…

1. Climbing aboard a gorgeous black horse named Raven and helping to herd a group of about 60 cattle along the Blackfoot River.

2. Hanging out with past National Cowgirl Hall of Fame honorees Sharon Camarillo, a champion barrel racer and horsemanship clinician; Donna Howell-Sickles, who portrays cowgirls in her colorful artwork; and master engraver Diane Scalese.

Western artist Donna Howell-Sickles cracks a bull whip at the Cowgirl Roundup in Montana. Pam LeBlanc photo

3. Trying to learn how to crack a bullwhip. I never quite mastered the skill, but now I’m determined. Guess what’s now at the top of my Christmas list?

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4. Listening to Courtenay Dehoff, part owner of the pro bucking bull Top Dollar (who I just watched send a cowboy airborne at a PBR event in Austin) talk about what it means to have cowgirl courage.

5. Riding a horse through stands of towering pine trees.

6. Looking for wildlife. I admired a bald eagle perched in a tree top and saw a coyote dash across a field during a long walk one morning.

Montene Trimback fly fishes the Blackfoot River in Montana. Pam LeBlanc photo

7. Honing my inner angler. If you’re going to learn how to fly fish, you might as well do it on the Blackfoot River, which inspired Norman McLean’s novel “A River Runs Through It.”

8. Watching the stars pop out as I soaked in the hot tub behind my cabin in the woods every night.

9. Meeting and interviewing Colleen Tuohy, founder of the women’s clothing brand Wyatt Outdoors, and her bird dog Patsy Cline.

10. Making new friends. I attended the roundup solo, which made me a little nervous. Most folks were there with friends or family members. But people invited me to sit with them and made me feel welcome and comfortable.

Garnet, Montana, is considered one of the best-preserved ghost towns in the American West. Pam LeBlanc photo

​Remember that episode of “The Brady Bunch,” when our favorite blended family stumbled into a perfectly preserved ghost town and met a crotchety prospector wearing a crumpled felt hat?

I felt kind of like that this week, when I detoured to the skeletal remains of the town of Garnet, about 30 miles east of Missoula, Montana.

More than twenty wooden buildings, including old log cabins, a three-story hotel and a dry goods store, still stand in the old town. I spent a few hours trying to imagine what it was like to live there during the mining boom of the late 1890s.

The town sprung up after an enterprising businessman built a mill to extract the precious metal from rocks excavated from the nearby hills. In its heyday, it included seven hotels, three livery stables, 13 saloons, four stores, a school, a doctor’s office, a drugstore, a union hall, two barber shops and – hooray! – a candy shop.

The boom didn’t last. The gold veins mostly ran out by 1900, and by 1905 most folks had abandoned their cabins. The population shrunk from about 1,000 to just 150. Then, in 1912, a fire raced through the community, destroying many of the structures. World War II drove most of the remaining residents out.

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Miners lived in log cabins tucked on hillsides in Garnet, Montana. Pam LeBlanc photo

When gold prices jumped in 1934, the town experienced a bit of a rebirth. New buildings went up, the mines reopened, and town briefly bustled once again. But the advent of World War II ended that boom, too. People moved away, but left their homes, and much of the furniture inside them, behind.

Looters hauled off many of the artifacts in the following years, but today the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Garnet Preservation Association protect and preserve the site, considered one of Montana’s most intact ghost towns.

I didn’t find any old prospectors during my visit, but I did find plenty of other treasures.

A old sewing machine sits inside a hotel in the ghost town of Garnet, Montana. Pam LeBlacn photo

Highlights? Finding an old bicycle and lots of old household products inside the main downtown store. Climbing a set of creaky stairs to explore the pint-sized rooms of the old hotel. Chatting with a ranger at the visitor’s center, who showed me a collection of old bottles and cans and explained that miners didn’t eat many fruits or vegetables and relied on bitters to stay regular.

For more information about Garnet, go here.