Friday is Cat Blog Day. Pass It On!

Annie enjoying petting and adulation, to which a cat is innately entitled.

Our cats are very strange and don't eat "people food." You can leave shrimp, tuna, a whole fisherman's platter anyplace and they don't even sniff it. Thisbe, the younger more sentivie cat would eat table food as a kitten, but apparently Annie taught her that this simply wasn't done.

When I was a teenager, our neighbors had a cool Siamese that I let into the house sometimes. One day, I let the cat in and left again. Ye gods! The cat ate an entire leftover roast that my mom had out for out dinner. Cat and I both in the dog house big time.

We've been eating well this week: Sauteed chicken breast with a sauce of broth, lemon juice, capers and parsley for two days, and tonight a chicken salad with celery, Granny Smith apple, a few dried apricots and some walnuts. I made a dressing sour cream mayo, curry powder, ginger and just a wee sprinkle of cayenne. A tad of Equal, just a smidgeon. $6.00 worth of chicken breasts and 3 meals. Not bad, she said. I made a simple ratatouille which we eat as a salad or (tonight) appetizer. Tomorrow we'll have it with green beans and steak. Summer's fruits and veggies are rolling in. We have nectarines to eat. Do I make a nectarine fool or a pie?

May I share my quick dessert secret? A pillbury pie crust from the dairy case--comes 2 to a box. Unroll one on a rimmed cookie sheet. Use whatever fruit you want or a combination of fruits--berries are good. Peaches and berries--I've even used frozen cranberries and rhubarb. Combos are endless. So take the fruit and toss it with sugar to taste and a little cornstarch. You might want to add a bit of lemon, cinnamon or nutmeg depending on the fruit. A few nuts can be fun. Toss this altogether and put in the center of the crust, then turn up the crust, pinching together until you have a freeform tart, partially covered with crust, but with fruit exposed in the center. Bake in a 400 degree over until the crust turns brown, 35-40 minutes. Cool and serve with whipped or ice cream. Serves 4.

This is about as fast as you can hope to put a dessert together, and it always tastes first rate. You can brush the crust with beaten egg or not. Sometimes the fruit juices leak a bit, which is why you need a rimmed cookie sheet. A word to the wise. Really yummy. Idiot simple. What more do you want?

So I've shared my cat and my shabby little dessert secrets. Remember, today is Friday, so blog your cat.

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There was my character, sitting in a squad car

Enough of morose posts. They do clear the air, somehow.

Yesterday morning, we took a stroll along the bridal path in Central Park in NYC. On the way back to my friend's apt., we had to cross 5th Avenue. Yesterday was the Aids Walk, so the cops were out in force, even the canine corps and the riot police--I did the Aids Walk for years and believe me, we never had any occasion for the riot police--but they were there anyhow. As we crossed t 5th Avenue, I looked into a squad car stopped at the red light and there was Spike, my character, a female cop in Northern Wisconsin. It was Spike in every detail from hair to makeup.

It is really cool to see your character, one that came straight out of your head walking around (or in this case driving) out of the blue. Once I saw my character Petra (The Shadow Warriors) in Roche Bros. in Wellesley. Sometimes I write with a real person's physicality in mind, so of course, one is not likely to see them, (if a photo) or else it's someone you work with and you see them every day, noting all their little eccentricities to get authenticity into the writing.

Love it! So, yanno, life is strange.

We're half in diet mode this week, as we won't be the other half and were certainly not last week. My friend in NYC made the most fantatic wild mushroom lasagne. Can't tell you how good it was, because words fail. Although vegetable (are mushrooms veggies? Don't think so) it was not without calories. We ate at a Alsatian restaurant on 2nd Avenue, and that fare is not exactly low cal either.

I'm making a couple chicken salads for the diet days. Never tastes like diet food, even w/o mayo. Just tasty. I belong to a list server and recently the topic of eating healthy while travelling came up, and what lengths those women go to on the road was truly astounding.

My rule when travelling is "eat what is put in front of you, and you never know when your next meal may arrive." Carry a snack along, too. These rules have served me well. Travel is godawful enough without a growling stomach. The worse snack I ever had was on a Delta flight from Atlanta to Cincinnati. It was a low-fat strawberry Fig Newton and two other like-minded pieces of faux food. So bad I wrote a letter. I hate artificial flavoring and will do just about anything to avoid it. Yeccch! And I love the old-fashioned Fig Newtons. There are naturally low-fat and whoever the idiot was to take the rest of the fat out should be condemmed to eat them, esp. the strawberry ones, yech, barf, through all eternity.

Cripes, here I am ranting again. Time to go to the store and buy the healthy ingredients for the South Beach Chicken Salads. Then come home and write.

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