A mother-daughter conversation on food and cooking (mostly)

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Fish Course: Cat v. Human

That border foods cookbook sounds amazing. What's it called?

My best bread cookbook is The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. He has a book called Brother Juniper's Bread Book: Slow Rise as Method and Metaphor that's supposed to be excellent and covers more whole grain breads than the one I have.

The new vet says Ronnie is starting to gain a bit too much weight (though she still weighs 9 pounds...the lightest cat I've ever lived with!). The vet is a big proponent of all-wet, low-carbohydrate cat foods, so he gave me some reading material and suggested I get her off the Iams hard food and half-pouches of Whiskas. I've done a bunch more research, and he's probably right. Veterinary opinion these days is that dry food is worse for cats' teeth, not better, and that commercial cat food with all its grains and fillers is responsible for the cat obesity epidemic. Anyway, in the course of my research I found this recipe for cat food. It's funny: cooking for humans is wonderful, but cooking for my cat doesn't appeal to me in the least...I suppose because I wouldn't want to sample the Whole Bone-In Rabbit & Organ Meats Tartare.

So today I went to the natural foods store to buy Ronnie some fancy cat food: a can of Petguard Savory Seafood, and a can of Fish, Chicken, & Liver. And there I bought two whole trout for me and Lawson. That store always has relatively cheap whole fish for some reason -- it's where I bought the sardines we had a few weeks back.

For dinner tonight I'm making grilled, bacon-wrapped whole trout with a rosemary twig and some lemons stuffed inside them -- I decided to give the Gourmet cookbook another chance after the mushroom sauce success. I'm also baking acorn squash -- you inspired me -- and making a salad with plain old vinaigrette. It should be a good start to the week.

No comments: