Yes, but where are the plums?

During the winter holidays, Jason's delightful mother, Lynn, came to stay with us. It was so wonderful to reminisce with her about my youth and the joys of being permitted outside. Oddly, she seems quite fond of Jennifer (something about keeping Jason decently clothed and fed) and refused to discuss the merits of indoor-outdoor living for felines. I know that Jason can be quite a handful, but I fail to see how that should impact my comings and goings.

On a happier note, Lynn is a champion cook and she and Jennifer spent a few days preparing various holiday dishes. Apparently, it is a tradition in Jennifer's family to prepare plum pudding to serve with the holiday meal. I had no idea her background contained such a delightful treat. Ah, plum pudding. A dessert immortalized by the great writers of the Victorian era! It has even found it's way into the words of the popular Yuletide tune "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Although many people have heard of the dish, few know much about it. As Jennifer was kind enough to take pictures of the process I thought I would share some of my vast store of knowledge on the subject.

One of the most difficult steps is acquiring all of the necessary ingredients. Jennifer had to travel to several stores over the course of a week to find all of the supplies. One of the most difficult to locate was also the most important: suet. Suet is rendered beef fat and is used in plum pudding in much the same way lard or butter is used in other dishes. Unfortunatly, Jennifer failed to take any pictures of it, despite the effort she expended finding it, so I am unable to share any with you.

She did remember her camera at other points, however. As you can see, the recipe requires quite a few items and they all must be chopped before they are added to the mixture. Surprisingly, there are no plums in plum pudding. "Plum" is a British slang term for raisins and this recipe calls for two different kinds.

Once the the batter is prepared, it is put is a small heat-proof container. Because Jennifer did not have a pudding steamer (silly, girl), she had to wing the next few steps. She covered the small container with tin foil and a plate and placed it on a trivet inside her largest pot- a turkey roaster in this case.

She then poured boiling water into the roasting pan, placed the lid on, and placed a brick on top (I told you she was winging it).

After three hours of simmering the water and thereby steaming the pudding, the dish was finished! As you can see, it is not a pudding at all but rather a very dense cake. Why humans insist on calling it pudding instead of cake is an issue for another day.

Traditionally, a quantity of brandy is poured on top of the pudding and then lit on fire just prior to serving. It was quite a spectacular show! Pale blue flames are not easily photographed, however, so you will have to take my word for it. Jennifer was so shocked at the flames that she dropped the match on the pudding itself!

As a finishing touch, the still-warm pudding is served with a cream and brandy sauce that is quite delightful. Unlike the brandy in the pudding (and on the pudding) the brandy in the sauce is not cooked and therefore retains its potency.

A very merry Christmas indeed!

O M G

I just checked the dates and we haven't posted since September 1st. September 1st!!! That's like...one...two...three...a lot of months! That's ridiculous! Esp. since my person and TGWWGA actually did stuff. Some of it was even cool! Well, sort of cool. As cool as they're ever gonna get. *sigh*

Well, to be totally honest, they did stuff until my person's quarter started. Apparently she took really hard classes and had a lot of work to do for school. I didn't believe her at first. What could be more important than paying attention to me? But look at all those books! There's like a million of them! She ran out of room on her bookcase and had to start stacking them on the floor. Some of those stacks are almost as big as me! And if that wasn't bad enough, she took over the computer too! Personally, I think her teachers would've understood if she'd scratched my ears instead of writing papers, but you know how humans can be about paperwork. *rolls eyes*

Anyway, my person has promised us that we will be able to post more this quarter. I told her if she doesn't, I will totally get Edmund to puke on the bed.

It Must be Genetic

Given how cool our last guest was, I was really excited to hear that my person's sister was coming to visit. Not only is she not a grad student, she lived in Japan for six months. She even said she'd cook Japanese food for us. How cool is that?!

Her visit started off pretty promising. They all went to a Tiki bar in N. Hollywood and stayed out until like 2 in the morning. Even though I didn't get to go, at least my person finally went out on the town in L.A. The next day was pretty quiet. Which was fine because someone needed to scratch my ears and I wasn't about to let TGWWGA do it. But things started to go downhill after that. On Monday, they did go get drinks at a swanky bar in town but before that they went to a garden. A very educational garden that had lots of cactuses and stuff. What is it with these people and going to educational parks? They already know how to open a tuna can. What else could there possibly be to learn? Especially about cactus!

They said they were going shopping the next day which got my hopes up, but did they shop for something cool? Oh no. They went to used bookstores. That's right. More than one. Just what my person needs: more books. >< My person and TGWWGA took her out to karaoke that day, too, but they manged to find they only one that didn't serve alcohol. They said they had a good time, but I'm pretty sure that cool people aren't sober when they're singing karaoke.

Her last day here, they decided to go the beach. Finally! A normal California thing to do. They even took their bathing suits with them. Turns out, though, that the real reason they went to Laguna Beach was to go to an art exhibit about that World of Warcraft game they're always playing. They did go walk along the beach, but they didn't even put on their suits. I can understand not wanting to get wet, but it was a beautiful, sunny California day at the beach and they spent most of it at an art museum! How much dorkier can you get? My person wanted me to post a WoW picture to go along with this entry, but I'm not gonna. Someone has to draw the line.

My person's parents are coming to visit next week but seeing how both of their children are dorks, they probably are too. *rolls eyes*

Finally!

So this happened quite a few weeks ago, but it is probably the least dorky thing my person has done the entire time we've lived here and I'm going to blog about it even if it has been awhile.

Back in June, a friend of my person's came to visit us. I remember her from Ohio, but after she got done with school she moved to Chicago. Chicago! The lights! The music! The nightlife! This already made her pretty cool in my book. My person, like the total dork she is, wanted to hang out around here. Here is pretty cool and everything, much better than Ohio, but my person's friend (who is named Emily, btw) realized that we were only an hour a way from L.A. and insisted that they spend some time in the city. I've been saying that for months but my person finally listened to reason and agreed to Emily's plan. Yay!

They spent the first day going to shops on Melrose and Sunset Blvds. My person didn't buy anything but that's ok because she actually went to Melrose and Sunset! So cool! A few days later they drove around Beverly Hills and Belle Aire and even went to Rodeo Drive. They didn't do any shopping, though, partly because TTGWWGA was with them and he doesn't like shopping. Emily had never seen the ocean before, so they also went to the beach which isn't nearly as cool. I know it's Southern California and that's a big thing to do here, but I don't really get what's such a big deal about a lot sand and water. I've got sand in my litter box and it smells funny and the less said about large bodies of water the better.

They wrapped things up by going to a live show in downtown LA. Emily picked the band out. I hadn't heard of it before, but she played me some of her music while she was here and it was all pretty cool. Way better than the stuff my person listens to.

After Emily left, my person hasn't gone to the city again (big surprise) but apparently she's meeting some of her (apparently much cooler) grad school friends downtown for dinner and drinks next week. Maybe there's hope for her yet.

Oops!

I forgot to include this pic in my post yesterday. I must still be getting over being abandoned. QQ

Anyway, my Mommy's Mommy is a very talented artist and she drew this picture (there's a bigger one below) to decorate the Children's Room at the library she works at. Normally I'm scared of dragons, but this seems like a nice dragon. Come to think of it, he looks a bit scared himself. Cool! I have something in common with a dragon! I wonder if he likes having his tummy rubbed too? It's time for my second afternoon nap! ttyl!

She Left Me!

Even the Monster left me! Well, maybe that's not such a bad thing.... But, still! Mommy left me! She did come back. Eventually. Doesn't matter. I was left all alone! Except for Dante and Spanky. But they don't scratch my ears and they're not Mommy! *pouts*

Deep breath. Start at the beginning.

The Monster's brother was getting married (Monster's have brothers?!?) and so he went back to Michigan where we used to live for the wedding. It was just us and Mommy. Yay! I got lots of cuddles and snuggles and sitting on the Monster's chair (I'm a brave kitty!). Then Mommy left for work and didn't come home for four whole days! Apparently, she had to leave right from work to catch her plane. But why didn't she take me with her? Oh right. I don't like things that go "whoosh" and Mommy says planes do that. Well, why couldn't she stay, then? Monsters' brothers' wedding can't be better than me, right? ;-(

Mommy says the wedding was lovely and the bride and the groom were very happy. Which is good I guess. My Mommy looked pretty awesome, too. That's a picture of her with the Monster's sister (Monster's have sisters too?!?). She looks nice. Definitely not scary like the Monster. Mommy says the Monster looked very handsome all dressed up for the wedding but I'm not going to post any pictures of him because I'm not that brave of a kitty. Mommy also got to see her family and sleep in her old room. Which is also nice but it would've been much nicer if I was there to frolic and get cat hair all over things and meow randomly. It sounds like her family is going to come visit us in California soon. Maybe we could work out a deal where they stay here and we send the Monster back there?

The Wedding Party

I am Most Certainly Not Domesticated

It has recently come to my attention that a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences* claims that not only are cats lazy, they domesticated themselves. Rubbish!

Firstly, cats are not lazy. It is a testament to our brilliance and our skill that our actions look effortless. Furthermore, rushing hither and thither is not only unnecessarily tiring, it is rarely effective. Far better results are achieved from choosing tasks wisely and then taking one's time to complete them. Humans could stand to learn a thing or two from cats. Which brings me to my second point.

Secondly, cats did not domesticate themselves. I would argue that cats should not even be considered as a domesticated species. Horses, cows, chickens, and even dogs are domesticated animals. It is sheer foolishness to put felines in the same group with such creatures for reasons that should be obvious. But the real insult is that we would willing put ourselves in such company! According to the study, many thousands of years ago cats noticed that human settlements made excellent hunting grounds and so adapted themselves to living alongside humans. Given how messy humans are, it is no surprise that my forebears realized that this was too good of an opportunity to let pass. Certain physical adjustments were also likely necessary to hunt in an urban environment. Why large cats such as tigers and panthers are a wonder to behold and a testament too our species, they are a bit to big to hunt successfully in the tight places favored by rodents in man-made structures. This, however, does not constitute domestication but a well-planned, comprehensive strategy to take advantage of situation.

Quite frankly, if anyone has been domesticated it is the humans themselves. We have managed to create a partnership in which the humans provide us with food and shelter and in return we grace their homes with our presence. I enjoy hunting for my supper as much as the next cat, but when the weather is disagreeable I also enjoy watching the humans brave the elements to aquire my kibble while I sit warm and dry indoors. Perhaps the human scientists were also aware of this and their study is an attempt to obscure the true nature of the relationship and increase their own sense of worthiness.

*This link will take you to the New York Times' response to this study. My scientifically inclined readers will find a link the study itself there as well.