Ode to My Cat and Delicious Meals

**DISCLAIMER**

I already know I'm a crazy cat lady. Blog posts about my cat are the least of my psychoses, so no need to notify me of this.

A noble companion.

I am perpetually heartbroken at how cute and sweet Friskies is. She's here right now, laying on me and making squeaky snoring sounds. GP says cats don't feel love, but I disagree. I don't know why she would do some of the things she does if she didn't love me. For example, there have been times when I've been a sad inconsolable wreck of a person, sobbing uncontrollably (not lately, but definitely during my first year of uni, especially at Christmas time, for reasons Sarah knows) and Friskies would gently hop onto whatever surface I was sitting/laying on (bed, desk, or other) and start licking my face. She could tell I was sad and she wanted me to feel better. It wasn't because I was being noisy, either, she just wanted to be unselfishly lovey.

I'm also thankful I can have a cat because I'd go crazy (crazier?) if I didn't have someone to talk to or pay attention to during the day. Having a pet has made me more responsible and less selfish. I can't sleep in until noon anymore because she needs to be fed. I have to vacuum regularly now because otherwise our house would look like the inside of a wool muffler and GP's allergies would cripple him.

As much as I love my fluffy feline Friskies, I also love dogs. I don't, however, understand those people who prefer cats over dogs, or vice versa. Cats are independent; they don't want or need you to constantly pay attention to them. Friskies and I have a mutually beneficial relationship that seems to work really well: when I want cuddles, she capitulates as much as she wants and when she wants cuddles I capitulate as much as I want. When she wants food I capitulate as much as veterinary recommendations allow and when we both want cuddles at the same time, well, that's wonderful. I would love to have a dog. Dogs make it socially acceptable for you to go on walks and swims in the lake alone (not that I wouldn't do that anyway) and they are fun to train. Both dogs and cats are good company for TV-watching, but neither compare to GP in that arena. I guess what I'm trying to say is that my personality is sufficiently ying/yang that I'm overjoyed to have either a cat or a dog, or both. I fucking love animals.

Now, the title of this post also contains the words "delicious meals", and I don't intend to disappoint. Without further ado, I'll show you some photos of what we've been eating lately:





A few nights ago we had lemon/molasses roasted chicken thighs with grilled local crookneck squash and a salad of heirloom tomatoes and basil, lightly dressed with olive oil, balsamic reduction and some fleur de sel.


To the right you will notice some aromatics. The basil, onions, garlic and lemon zest were some of the flavour components in the mussel and prawn dish below.


















Instead of the pasta usually served with this kind of recipe, I substituted some steamed local streaky-purple runner beans. It was a good experiment but I think next time I'll split them in half length-wise to make them feel more pasta-esque.

As you may have noticed, I've become a bit obsessed with all the fresh fruit and veggies that are in season now and I've been buying most of our produce locally because it's so effing delicious and cheap. Both GP and I love eating nectarines with homemade yogurt and some toasted almonds as a slightly healthier dessert. It's so nice to have fresh juicy fruit to eat and it's really a lot of fun to cook with these different-looking veggies (the crookneck squash is a favourite). We've been using our BBQ for almost every meal because I find grilling veggies brings out so much of their flavour. In fact, below is a picture of GP grilling up a storm of local turkey sausage and a close-up of the purple runner beans I was talking about earlier:


Those beans are fantastic on the BBQ- way better than steamed. If you don't do anything else new in the way of veggies this summer, do this:

1. Trim and wash beans- big thick local runner beans, or normal ones if you can't get good ones, but if you can't get the big ones I'm not sure you should bother.
2. Toss with a dash or two of grapeseed oil, S and P and a bit of garlic (fresh or granulated, doesn't matter).
3. Throw 'em on the grill at medium heat for a few minutes (four minutes total?), or until they show slight grill marks.
4. Eat them all quickly, before someone else does.

Last but not least, here is the dish I made last night:

Courtesy of Nigella Lawson and her book Forever Summer (thanks again, Monsieur Andrews), it is a chicken and parsley salad with toasted almonds. Simple enough, with a lemon juice and olive oil dressing, it was just what the doctor ordered as GP wasn't home, I wasn't very hungry, there was leftover chicken in the fridge and I didn't have enough parsley for two people. I ate it outside in the sun because it seemed like that is where it would've been enjoyed best. I wasn't wrong.