Dec 16, 2007

This ‘Junkyard Mama’ aspires to get hog lovers out of the kitchen and back on the road

Story by JOSH LINTEREUR Photos by SCOTT TERRELL

No one hates the inside of a house more than the leather-wearing, highwayloving biker chic from Lopez Island known as the “Junkyard Mama.”

That’s right; Junkyard Mama would much rather be roaring down the highway with the rubber down and the tank full on her blue Harley-Davidson low rider.

It can seem a bit odd then that this two-wheeling lady — whose real name is Debra Thompson — recently wrote and published a cookbook.

But with 200 dishes like her “Easy Sleazy Potato Soup” or “Road Rash Garlic Bread,” the aptly titled “Cooking With Biker Chics” doesn’t aspire to domesticate fellow biker babes.

So why does a motorcycle fanatic who lives for the open road write a cookbook? The answer is quite simple.

“I hate to cook,” said Thompson, who last year began compiling quick and easy recipes that fellow bikers can use to get out of the kitchen and on the road.

The idea came to her and a friend, co-author Jackie Tangen, who’s no longer involved with the project, after being cooped up indoors during one of last winter’s wind storms. The two subsequently began assembling a list of their favorite and most simple biker-friendly dishes.

The resulting recipes are Southernstyle comfort food classics, like “Iron Head Corn and Tomatoes,” which tastes best with a little bacon grease added in.

A few are relatively more upscale — but not too much — like “Flashy Flo’s Veal Florentine,” which the book says may prompt your “old man” to “put on a clean shirt…and help with the dishes.” Thompson, a 55-year-old grandmother of seven, has been riding

motorcycles “longer than she can remember,” she jokes, mostly in the West in places like Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming and Oregon.

During that time she’s picked up quite a few recipes from fellow bikers.

Some of her favorites were actually from men.

“Mississippi’s Potato Salad,” is named after her former fiancé. The secret to his recipe, she writes, is how he cooked his potatoes, which were peeled, cubed and then pan-fried until falling apart.

Another, “Korbin’s Corn Bread,” came from her 8-yearold grandson, Korbin, who made it one year for the family’s Thanksgiving dinner and blew everyone away with his cooking skills.

Meanwhile “Papa Jerry’s Carrot Cake,” is named for her husband, Jerry, a fellow biker who sports a long white beard that makes him a ringer for Santa Claus.

The recipes are all simple. A few, like the “Pit Stop Pumpkin Seeds,” fit into saddle bags and are made to travel. There are also a few beverages, like the “Radiator Blow-out Punch,” which goes down well while reading a copy of “Easy Rider” magazine, according to the book.

There’s even a recipe for pets that’s approved by Thompson’s dog, a Silky Terrier named Rudy Blues, who often rides firmly tucked inside Thompson’s leather jacket while wearing a pair of riding goggles that she calls “doggles.”

Thompson learned how to cook on her family’s farm in Utah, where nearly every dinner was made with meat and vegetables that the family had raised.

“We always had these fabulous meals,” she remembers. “Eating was the thing that kept us together.”

Thompson and her husband moved to Lopez Island several years ago from Ocean Shores and for a while lived inside an old school bus they’d retrofitted into a camper. Later, they swapped a motorcycle for the house where they currently live.

Thompson has become wellknown on Lopez Island, having sold more than 500 copies of her book, all by word of mouth. She recently began selling the book at several bookstores in Friday Harbor and through her Web site, www.cookingwith bikerchics.com.

Now she’s lining up book signings and is even talking about a sequel.

Thompson is used to the attention, having once appeared on the television series “Junkyard Wars,” where teams working out of actual junkyards build robots from scratch, and then pit their creations against each another. The gig fit her well, considering she also knows her way around the garage.

Her team built a drag boat out of a 1970s-era roller coaster cart. During the ensuing race, it lost its rudder and rode in circles. But at least she got a sweet nickname: the “Junkyard Mama.”

Lately, between her day job running a house-cleaning business and her work promoting her cookbook, she’s been left with little time to ride.

It’s a bit ironic, considering the message of her book. But eventually she’ll heed her own advice and hopes others will too — whether they’re bikers or not.

“Whatever your passion is, this will hopefully make your life easier, so you can get on with whatever you do,” she said.

Debra Thompson, a.k.a. “Junkyard Mama,” poses with her 2004 Harley-Davidson Dyna Low Rider at Causland Memorial Park in Anacortes. Thompson is the co-author of a self-published cookbook meant to reduce the amount of time people spend in the kitchen and give them more time on their motorcycles.

©2007 Skagit Valley Herald

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