Name Calling

I’ve been called many things….some to my face and, I’m certain, some behind my back. No matter. One thing I’m sure of is that I’ve never been called a cook.

Oh sure, I prepare food. I also order-out and bring-in.   But real, honest-to-goodness, get-your-hands-dirty, mess-up-pots, measure-ingredients kind of cooking. No. Not my idea of fun.

But lo and behold, in the paper recently, I read a quote from Julia Child and it appears we think alike. Julia says that things will always go wrong in the kitchen. You can count on it. And her mantra is: “Never apologize. Never explain.” Well, if she thinks that way, and I certainly do, well, then maybe I am a cook after all.

There was the always reliable Tuna, Mushroom Soup, Spaghetti and Curry Delight. A mainstay on our table for many years. We’d add little bowls of raisins, hard-boiled eggs and bananas because it was a curry dish and we were attempting to disguise the ingredients.

One night we had company and Tuna Delight was on the menu. As I went to the kitchen to retrieve it, I saw the cat in the dish. Not sniffing, not nibbling, not testing. He was totally immersed. And most of the tuna was gone.

I’d like to think that Julia would have done what I did. (Of course, she never would have served Tuna Delight in the first place but that’s another issue.)

I plucked out the cat, rinsed off his paws and his whiskers, fluffed up the Tuna Delight and carried on. No apologies; no explanations.

To my knowledge, no animals or humans were harmed in that experiment.

Well, we’ve actually not seen those people since that evening so I can’t be totally sure about them. I am, however, quite sure the cat was happy.

 

Fanciful cat image thanks to colourbox.com