Tag: Food

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I don’t know why I never realized this before now but butter is absolutely the best addition a person can make to any food. The best. It can make a stale piece of bread taste delicious. Maybe there can be too much butter but I seriously doubt it. I have never had that experience. Too much pepper yes, too much salt, an emphatic yes. But butter never. Even if I don’t like the taste of something, or I think I won’t like it, I can be persuaded to try it if this thing is slathered in butter. So I have tried snails and oysters but the only reason I even attempted a taste was because of the butter.

This is an irrefutable truth.

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Bob and I recently adopted two young cats. They had been living outside for awhile but weren’t feral. They came as a pair because Chloe was attached to her brother Cisco and it would be difficult to separate them. So we brought home Chloe and Cisco.

Cisco is a hulk. Think a lineman on a football team. He has a really thick neck with a bushy lion’s mane. He is a bit of bully with Chloe, at least, at first he was. Chloe followed Cisco around everywhere he went and I think the constant attention annoyed him after awhile and he would lash out at her to leave him alone. She also thought they could play together so he would surprise attack him from time to time. We tolerated the ensuing chase through the house which usually ended with a wrestling match. Our idea was that they needed to work out their relationship between the two of them. If Chloe hissed for help, we would rescue here but otherwise they rolled around for a few minutes until the nimble Chloe wiggled her way out of trouble.

Chloe eventually was able to get her social needs met from us and the fights between them lessened. The only contentious time left is dinner time when Cisco, who gobbles his food quickly, nudges the more leisurely eating Chloe away from her food bowl. Bob, concerned that Chloe isn’t getting her fair share of the food, stands guard while Chloe eats. This allows for Chloe to get to the half way point with her food before Cisco pushes her out of the way.

The problem is that Cisco also bullies us. He harasses us for people food while we are eating. We have learned from previous cats to never give cats people food. If you ever do, the cats won’t leave you alone while you eat. They want to know what you are eating and whether they can have a bite. I could put up with it if they confined this unruly behavior to just us but it is embarrassing when there are guests over and the cats leap on to the table to make a food grab. In the past we would lie and say this is so strange as this never happens with the two of us when it actually happens on a daily basis.

We decided early on that Cisco and Chloe would not get people food, particularly from the table while we were eating. It worked for Chloe. She learned pretty quickly that begging wasn’t going to get her anywhere and, for the most part has given up on begging for food. She will occasionally slip if she smells something particularly good but once turned down, she will stop begging. Cisco, on the other hand, doesn’t even beg, he plops is paw down on your plate as a first move in his food grab. And will not take no for an answer. Fortunately for us, he isn’t very quick and we are able to block his grabs without him getting anything of value.

However, food left unattended on the counter is extremely vulnerable. Just today Bob put out some packaged tortillas on the counter for our dinner. Since they were packaged and a non-animal protein product, we thought they were safe. Cisco thought otherwise. He bit and clawed his way through the packaging until the tortillas were free for him to nibble on. As far as he is concerned, he has the right to inspect any food item that comes into the house and taste to see if it is something he likes. Our experience with over 50 years of living with cats led us to believe that threats and screams would scare the normal cat away from any nefarious activity. Cisco is unmovable even if we run towards him while yelling no loudly. He just dares you to make him move and remains seated until he is removed from the counter. He is either too dim to understand that we are angry with him and he should flee the counter or he just doesn’t give a damn what we think. I suspect it is the later

Bob and I try to reassert our alphaness but Cisco isn’t surrendering the alpha mantel without a fight. Lately, his singular claim to the alpha tile was strengthned when he took over Bob’s favorite chair. Now Bob looks wistfully at his chair and mutters, “I wish I could have my chair back.” I tell Bob to move Cisco but Bob knows there will be a struggle and he isn’t sure who will come out with the prize. Losing to a cat would be a terrible blow to Bob’s ego. How could we show our faces at the White Party if people knew a cat took down Bob? The loser would certainly have to leave in shame and, right now, Cisco is the odds on favorite to retain the chair.

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To give you a little context about this post, please scroll down to the previous post. I make a confession about food.

So I was getting ready to talk about eating at a high falutin restaurant before I felt it necessary to explain a little something about my taste buds, so, I assume everyone is on board with my undiscriminating taste so I will continue with my story.

Friends wanted to go to a Michelin star French restaurant for the experience. Bob likes food and I like alcohol. The restaurant had both so I was in for the experience. Before going too far, I want to say the experience was fun, good company, good drink, and nice setting all made for a wonderful evening.

When I think of French dining, I think Beef Bourguignon, Coq au Vin, or Salad Nicoise. None of which were on the menu instead the menu contained a mysterious blends of unfamiliar meats, vegetables, and sauces. Absolutely nothing was familiar to me. Fortunately for me, most of my dining companions found themselves in the same situation. Usually when a waiter arrives at the table, I have a general idea of what I am interested in ordering. After scanning the menu several times, I had no idea whatsoever.

The waiter was absolutely vital to the ordering process. If he hadn’t patiently explained every item on the menu, I would have been lost. And I am not exaggerating, I mean every item on the menu needed an explanation from the waiter. Usually after a waiter answers my questions, particularly if he spent the better part of a half hour, I can safely make my choice. I simply match the entree’s main dish — say the steak with what the waiter just told me. Except nothing on this menu says steak or chicken or salmon. Each item has a clever French name which was spoken beautifully by the waiter and promptly forgotten by me. So instead of looking down at the menu and seeing steak, I am seeing the blah, blah or the blah, blah, blah. I can’t remember if the blah, blah is the salmon or the blah, blah, blah. I worry that the so far very patient waiter might break if I ask him to repeat for the fifth time what was on the menu. Instead, between a combination of fuzzy memory and mental dart throwing, I make my choices

The food arrives and was eaten. First the food tasted fine. I ate everything on my plate but at the prices they were charging I was going to eat everything on my plate even if I detested the meal, so hardly a valid measurement. More telling, I am afraid, is that even after eating my meal, I had no words to describe what I ate. This is after the waiter has given a dissertation about the menu and who when delivering the food, kindly reminded me what I ordered. If I had to describe my meal, I would say it was a hunk of meat with a sauce. Wait that is wrong, maybe, it wasn’t a hunk of meat, maybe it was a vegetable. Wait, maybe it was fruit. Or was it pasta? I really couldn’t tell you. It was definitely something and it was edible. If any of my dinner companions asked me what I just ate, I had to go back to the website look at the menu and then, after a few minutes a word would jump out at me and I would remember what I ordered.

All and all, it was a wonderful experience but I am afraid the menu revealed, yet again, my low brow status. This only confirms the Dorothy Parker adage: “You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.”

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I was going to write about eating at high falutin restaurant but I thought I needed to explain something about myself first.

I am embarrassed to admit that I am not a foodie. I eat to live and not much else. I like bland food. The blander the better. Most people find my indifference to food difficult to understand. I have learned to keep my mouth shut when people start talking about food because when I do people generally think I am lying. That nobody could possibly mean what I am saying.

But I do. I don’t really have any taste. I am just as happy eating at a cheap diner as the fanciest restaurant in town. As long as the diner has alcohol, I am fine. The good news is I am not in the least bit picky. I will go to any restaurant that people want to go. I will find something to eat. Or, and this is the kicker, I will suck it up and eat whatever is available. It is one meal. It isn’t my last meal and eating food I don’t particularly like won’t kill me. I can eat cold food. I can eat spicy food although, I have to admit, I won’t eat again. But if I accidently order a spicy dish again, I will eat it. I can eat overcooked food although I probably wouldn’t even recognize that it is overcooked until someone mentions it. I can skip meals without even knowing it.

So, I am thinking, you won’t be shocked when I confess that fine dining mystifies me. I am confused on why people will spend so much money on food. If you like steak or sushi I can hopefully give you an idea of my thinking.

Since I am from Kansas City, I have eaten steak all my life. I have eaten it rare. I have eaten it well done. I have eaten cheap steaks and I have eaten expensive steaks. I still, for the life of me, can’t see why anyone would pay $50 for one. They all taste the same to me and seriously confused when my fellow diners are raving about how good the steak is. Particularly when they look at me askance while I am debasing the beef with whatever sauce I can find to drench it with. I can eat a steak without sauce but I get bored with the meal quickly particularly in fine dining establishments where there is so much meat, that a good $25 of it is dangling off the plate. I can eat a few bites but really it is just texture to me and I end up taking most of it home where it sits in my refrigerator for a good month before I toss it out. A friend pointed out many years ago that I might as well eat a hamburger instead. He was joking but he is right. I would be just as happy with a hamburger or brisket or any other much cheaper cut of meat. And the best part is if you douse you hamburger with BBQ sauce nobody gives it a second thought.

I have a similar feeling about Sushi. I have heard people claim that the sushi they were eating was melting in their mouth. After numerous tastes of sushi I have yet to have that experience. I know some people don’t like sushi because it is uncooked. That doesn’t bother me in the least. I just can’t figure out what the big deal is. I can eat sushi but after every attempt, I think I’d rather have a pizza or a burger or a taco. There are people who actually go out of their way to eat sushi . I mean, they take a plane, rent a hotel room so they can visit a city and eat sushi at a specific restaurant because the sushi melts in your mouth. Really, this is true. All I can detect is that the meat texture is somewhat different from the cooked meat.

So I think I have established my credentials as a non-foodie. Food is something I eat because I know I have to but it isn’t something that particularly matters to me. I know that this is something that many people find tantamount to being a serial killer or a war criminal. Many people advised me not to make such an admission publicly as this could cause my readers to rebel and stop reading my posts. I am sorry if you feel that way but I feel it is important for me to be perfectly honest with my readers because if you can trust something you read on the worldwide web then what kind of world do we have?