Wednesday, February 1, 2012

The Gastronomical Cat

I have a remarkably weird cat. Ray likes to thumb through the cookbooks. It's rarely the same one, so he has clearly been looking for a specific recipe for some time now. Nope, not in Julia. Jeff Smith, you must be kidding? So this morning he pulls out The New Basics by Julee Rosso and Sheila Luckins. I am NOT kidding. He opens it quickly, I think finds what he wants and rips a page out, then crosses his arms and sits on it with a satisfied look on his face, waiting. I've long been wondering who leaves the dirty pans in the sink. And where those stray bits of bulghur wheat tabbouleh came from. He has very clearly been teaching himself how to cook so he doesn't have to eat cat food any more. Normally he waits till I'm gone to start reading, but this morning, I guess he couldn't wait. And for some reason he didn't think I could put two and two together - that he's the one messing up the kitchen, and then pretending it was the kids.



So here's the bigger question: do I invite him to cook with me, and just pretend the whole thing never happened? Or do I confront him, and tell him to stop tearing up my old 1980s cookbooks. Actually I never knew he could read either. What other things do you suppose he's been keeping from me. OH! That's why the pickles have been disappearing too! He's been nibbling on them. And look how he's just sitting there as if nothing's happened. Opposable thumbs apparently are not such a big deal folks.



7 comments:

Rebekah209 said...

Maybe you should cook the recipe he pulls out and serve it to him? Maybe this is all a request.

Sarah|BHood said...

Hmm. My Daisy cannot reach the cookbook shelf. Instead, she enjoys chewing photocopies of historical documents retrieved from various libraries and archives. It never occurred to me before, but perhaps she's trying to draw my attention to finer points I've missed. Must look into this.

Ken Albala said...

So you really think the cat wants summer lemon potato salad? That's what he ripped out. AHA! That's it - the bowl of lemons on the counter! He's looking for a recipe for them. UNBELIEVABLE!

Deana Sidney said...

Petunia, the St. Bernard just ate 2 1/2 pounds of raw goose... she nearly got thawing duck breast. I think that we have created monsters... they just want what we are having. Seriously, would you eat cat food?????

PS maybe you were making some great fish dish when you made that potato salad and the scent of THAT is on the page!!!

Juana Isabella/Donna said...

I've always thought that sitting on books was the way cats read. It is some sort of osmosis through the belly or the butt.

Just don't show your furry friend the recipe in Nola for cat, that might be too much for him.

Ken Albala said...

Ha! Donna, I've translated that cat recipe! It's in print. Hmm, forgot about that.

And Deana, it's not just this book, he pulls out any cookbook on the lower shelf, I've never caught him actually reading them.

K. Gill said...

Sorry to go off topic, but I wanted to let you know that I just purchased your Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia and I *love* it. I wrote more details about why I like it so much on my positive Amazon review for it. Thanks so much for helping to make this set possible :)