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.

When the Boyfriend's Away...

I will play! Today GP is doing some former-law-student thing down in Metchosin and I felt like I'd be a third leg (is that a thing?) if I went. So instead I stayed here and unfortunately none of my friends (you jerks) could come play with me, so I went solo for the day. No big deal, it turned out to be a lot of fun to be out on my own on a sunny day.

(Aside: Friskies just came and sat on my lap and now she's purring her head off. Ugh... SO EFFING CUUUUUUUTE) Here is a picture of me loving her:
GP and I went and looked around Cowichan Bay yesterday for a little bit, but we got there too late and all the shops were closed. So today I took it upon myself to go back and do my own little investigation. In particular, there was a cheese shop I had my eye on looking into and I sure am glad I did. I'm sure if you've ever been to Cowichan Bay you know the one I mean. It's called Hilary's Cheese Shop and Deli (or something like that) and it's got various gourmet delights. I could've bought the entire showcase but instead I bought some French Port Salut, my granny's favourite cheese (it's kind of a creamy cheddar), and some Spanish Valdeon, a very strong blue cheese with a crumbly yet creamy texture. Goodbye P90X diet...

On the subject of blue cheese, I am so very glad I'm one of those people who can stomach an exceedingly strong one. When I asked the woman in the shop what kind of cheese "that one" was she kind of hesitantly explained its origins and asked me if I'd like to try it. "Of course!" I said, thinking everyone who works in a cheese shop likes blue cheese. Apparently that's not so, but the taste was delicious. It's good there are people like her because if the world was only populated with blue cheese lovers we wouldn't be very special. She was almost reverent when I told her how much I liked it and kept going on about how it's the "strongest cheese we have in the shop!". I am such a freak that a co-worker of this lady came over and asked me if the cheese was a gift. Thinking back on it, I'm not really sure if that's a compliment. What a crappy gift to give someone, "Happy birthday, here's a six dollar wedge of cheese that smells like armpits." I guess it would be a good gift if it were given to someone like me... Hint hint.

I really wanted to visit some farms today, as I just found this website: http://www.islandfarmfresh.com/ via my friend Amy. It's a list of all the farms in Southern Vancouver Island, which is pretty cool. I think it would be more fun to do that with friends though. Any takers? Instead of visiting farms, I went to the Old Market just south of Duncan because I know they have tonnes of local strawberries right now. Needless to say I bought a basket and it's very hard not to run to the fridge right now to grab a couple. There really isn't anything like gulping down a juicy farm-fresh strawberry full of flavour but not sweet like anything else. In fact, I can't wait to have my own garden so that I can grow my very own strawberries and eat them warm from the sun. Failing that, I'll just have to find a neighbour with a prolific berry patch, like my brother and I used to do.

When I got home I cooked up a delicious meal for myself, which included a couple of these tasty morsels:
What are they, you ask? Well I'll tell you. They are feta cheese with lemon, mint, olive oil, and a little bit of spicy red pepper all wrapped up in a piece of grilled eggplant and they are SO IMPOSSIBLY GOOD. So fresh, so smoky, so slightly spicy and coolly creamy. I have to thank dear Adrian again for Nigella's Forever Summer because that was where the recipe for these came from. Let me tell you, this is a summer recipe if ever I've tasted one. Originally there were ten little babies, but I admit I uttered the phrase "You're too small, I have to eat you" to two runts. Later, two more (sadly for them, happily for me) found their way to my stomach, but there are six awaiting their end in the refrigerator because I couldn't bear to pass up the praise I know I'll get when GP tastes these. Plus, I have a feeling this is one of those recipes that profits greatly from a sit overnight if that's possible. You should buy Forever Summer or get a friend who is as great as Adrian and will buy it for you even if, like Adrian, his reason for buying it is because "she just looks so sultry on the cover, caressing those tomatoes".

I tried making protein bars today. All I can say about that is: dismal failure. I'll keep trying and post my successes (if any) here. I'm not so sure I'll be trying too often unless I find a foolproof one; protein powder is expensive and, therefore, screwing up is too.

Now it's very likely I'll knit, or keep reading The Vegetarian Myth. Who knows? The night is young!