Pair get young outfit cooking

The boys gathered around Will Judge are as mesmerized by his cooking flames as they are with Will. His thick, arched mustache, black cowboy hat and boots are enough to merit a second look from most city folk.

But these boys living at Children’s Village in Coeur d’Alene are impressed with something more basic. Will is a man.

“It’s natural for them to gravitate to him,” says Tinka Schaffer, one of Children’s Village’s directors. “They’re little boys absent of a positive male role model in their lives.”

They’ve also never seen bright orange flames shooting out of miniature tin-can chimneys on Children’s Village’s backyard deck. Will and his wife, Barbara Judge, are outfitters teaching the village children to cook outdoors. When the coals under the flames are ready, Barbara will hand Will eight heavy Dutch ovens filled with barbecued beans, potatoes and bacon, smokies the size of baby fingers and mouth-watering desserts.

“It’s good for the children to see that people in the community care for them and the facility,” Tinka says. “Then, there’s the joy of the children learning life skills and interacting with trained and compassionate folks like Will and Barbara.”

North Idaho’s chapter of the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association adopted Children’s Village this year as the focus of its money and good deeds. Twenty children live in the village’s two rambling homes while their parents sort out their problems. Half the kids are in treatment for emotional and behavioral problems. The other half live at the village while their parents finish jail sentences, drug treatment and more. Some kids come from homeless families. Some need safety from abusive parents.

The outfitters’ association headquarters in Boise adopted the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. North Idaho has no such club yet, so Panhandle outfitters chose Children’s Village. The outfitters began their outreach in April with a benefit auction at the Coeur d’Alene Casino. The event raised $3,182.14 for the village, Barbara says proudly. She rounded up most of the auction items – fishing, rafting, snowmobiling, hunting and pack trips, boats, gun safes, rifles and more.

The association’s outreach means more than money, although Tinka was thrilled to receive a check.

“It’ll go for direct care – food, milk and educational supplies,” she says.

Will and Barbara launched the activity part of the relationship with their outdoor cooking lesson, which they managed to fit in right before their busy season starts. Other outfitters have proposed camping weekends, hayrides and rafting trips.

The Judges operate St. Joe Outfitters and Guides, a rustic getaway for fans of fly-fishing and pack trips deep into the Bitterroot Mountains. It’s five miles from the nearest road. Everything from toilet paper to hay for the horses is packed in on horses.

Summer heat at the retreat drove Barbara to learn to cook outside in Dutch ovens. No dish was out of the question. A few years ago, the Judges took their outdoor cooking skills to Kootenai County’s Juvenile Detention Center to share with the kids. They started as the outdoor season ended in the fall and ended the weekly classes when their season began again in the spring.

The center even released a few boys early so they could work at the Judges’ retreat. Will and Barbara saw such growth in the teens as they worked with their hands in the outdoors or prepared Dutch oven meals that they knew a Dutch oven dinner at Children’s Village would fascinate the kids.

And it does, despite rain, sun, rain and more rain outside. The Judges carry metal chimneys, charcoal and boxes of mysterious cooking supplies from their car into the village home.

The boys naturally follow Will and the chimneys onto the deck, where he starts work on a table appropriately close to a triangle for dinner call hanging off the deck’s eaves. The girls, even a toddler, gather around the dining table to watch Barbara lay out bags of flour, bowls, measuring cups and spoons, cans of Bush’s Maple-Sugar Cured Baked Beans, boxes of cake mix, packages of smokies, bottles of barbecue sauce and more. The girls are quiet but their eyes grow larger with each item Barbara pulls from a box.

The kids eagerly wash their hands at Barbara’s request. She sprays two Dutch ovens so food won’t stick to them, assures the kids it’s not poison, then introduces them to Buckaroo Spuds, Will’s favorite dish. Kids layer bacon, sliced potatoes, mustard, onions and cheese into the cast iron pots and tote them out to Will.

He sets one oven on a bed of coals, drops 18 coals on its lid and sets the second oven on top.

“Are you an expert?” one little boy asks as Will fearlessly grabs a glowing coal with tongs.

The kids dump beans, ketchup, brown sugar, mustard and spices in two Dutch ovens, then smokies in two more, then cake mix in two more. They measure gooey shortening and level cups of flour. Barbara smiles, unrattled, while a 3-year-old boy dumps spoonfuls of flour into her biscuit mix.

“It won’t hurt,” she says.

When the Dutch ovens are stacked in impressive columns on the cooking table, Will says, “You know what our job is now?”

“Wait!” the boys yell, then leap off the deck into the wet yard to chase each other until dinner is ready.

Before the party is over, the kids make ice cream in bags and eat until they can’t move without groaning. In a few weeks, they’ll roast hot dogs and marshmallows outdoors at Rider Ranch after a hayride – another gift from outfitters.

“This is fun,” a little boy with shocking red hair shouts and grins at Barbara as if she’s Santa Claus.

“That’s what makes it all worth it,” she says softly.