Cosmo Can Has Cheeseburger--lol

A cat, a cheeseburger, a cat food dish.  After the adventure with Fancy Feast cheese delight cat food, I decided to try an experiment to test out Cosmo's feelings about cheese, burgers, buns, delight, and to find out if he was a lol cat. I purchased two small dollar mcdonald's cheeseburgers (I know I've lost all the localtarian vegan people here), took a piece of one of the burgers and put it in cosmo's dish.  He showed no interest in it, even with the bun and any pickle or ketchup removed.  Then, figuring he did not like it and that he was not a lol cat, I sat down to eat the remaining burger.  Cosmo's whole demeanor changed, and somehow he conveyed to me that he was eager for a morsel.  He took several, even taking them to the floor to eat them.  The overall burger consumption was not excessive, and he did come to a point when he did not ask for any more.  He never touched the burger portion in his bowl.  I think here he did recognize that there were trace elements of beef in the mcdonald's confection, and easiness of consumption and companiableness were a factor in his preference for the burger when in the possession of human attendant.  Also a feeling that he had forcibly wrested it from his hooman.  Yes, Cosmo is, after all, a lol cat, but on his own terms.

Fancy Feast does not delight with cheddar

 

Fancy Feast seems to think cats are delighted by cheese.  Cheddar, to be exact.  Well, not Cosmo.  I fed it to him when he was quite hungry and he only licked at it.  Then, I tested this response by feeding him whiskas and he scarfed up that "filet mignon."  The Delights series is 99 cents, as is the Whiskas brand at the supermarket  (ten cents less at Longs).  The consistency seems to be at fault again:

I suppose we're trying for a "pulled pork" look, with the ever popular "little globs of cheese" look to make it even more palatable.  He's not buying it (and neither am I!)  Among the ingredients listed are "cheese (for cheddar cheese flavor)."  Blessed are the cheesemakers for cats!

Salmon goes on the favorites list

So you scrape the tomato and onion topping off the italian baked salmon that they sell on Fridays at the Kailua Times Supermarket.  You put it down in the cat's food dish.  When you next look at the food dish, all the fish is gone, without the mess which often comes after flaky fishy food.  If you put more down, you will get the same result.  If you put fancy feast salmon feast down, it will be eaten, albeit with less enthusiasm.  Then, when you are not paying attention, a purring cat will appear on your lap.  Try this experiment yourself:  all you need is a food dish, a cat, and some salmon.

Polynesian barbeque for pussycats

Cosmo, allowing me to sleep until a "grass matinée" 6 am was quite hungry, and scarfed this one right up.  It has some solidity, not being as flaky as in the above photo, some gel for binding.  The marketing is bizarre, not having anything to do with what appeals to cats.  However, it wasn't too pricey for this class of cat food (1.10), and it did the trick (post poned my journey to restock whiskas for a day).  It reminds me of when I was testing out baby foods on my two kids in Puerto Rico and Hawaii.  "Beans and Rice" available in both places, and poi being quite popular with Veronica, who was a slender and voracious baby.  There was some effort at appealing to the parents' desire for organic foods, but no "Marbella Paella" or "Mideast Feast".  Yet one hears of Indian infants being weaned onto curry, mexican babies to arroz con frijoles, etc., so why are our babes so nurtured in finickiness?  Our cats even more?  I guess it's just conspicuous consumption

Fish and Chips and Cosmo

If the fried skin is taken off, Cosmo will gladly eat the white Pilchard or whatever it is inside a piece of Fried Fish.  He will even take a bite of "chip" before he discovers his mistake.  But don't complicate the issue by dipping or slathering with malt vinegar or tartar sauce.  Just the fish, please!

spinach soufflé for cats? A fancy feast?

No.  He will show some interest, because his nose can detect that it contains cheese and skim, and it has a hold together type of texture.  He will sniff it all over, but not even taste it.  Spinach?  Nutmeg?  Don't make him laugh!

Al Gato no le Gustan los Cheetos, aún con Gorgojos (weevils)

Real Cheese Flavored Puffs, from CVS

It is not a great surprise that Cosmo did not eat even one of these.  He could smell at least a bit of cheese flavor and took one and brought it to the floor to kill it.  But when he licked it he immediately walked away.  Perhaps he would have liked it better if it had weevils in it, as some bags of this brand are said to do.  He's even less enthusiastic about pretzels, though he has been known to eat an entire tortilla chip.

Not too appetizing Fancy Feast Appetizer

Fancy Feast White Meat Chicken & Shredded Beef Appetizer in a Delicate Broth

As might be expected, Cosmo does not go for this.  The Broth is too Delicate for him: he likes it stinky, or shall we say pungent?  The texture is hard to bite at and flakes apart.  I suppose they call it an appetizer not because a cat has any expectation that waiters with white linen towels over their arms will hover around him taking away the plates after each course but because this product does not contain minerals or vitamins or the all important taurine.  "This product is intended for supplemental feeding only..."  And I don't know how he would have felt about it when he was younger, but when given a teaspoon in his food dish (not on a glazed plate with a gold line running through it, not with a napkin tied around his pretty little neck) he licked at it briefly, came back once to check it out, then came to me meowing questioningly (or who can tell, maybe he was calling for a  solid 24 k dish).  Overpriced, embarrassingly advertised to appeal to the kinkiest of old cat ladies or gentlemen ("Romance your cat's tastebuds")  1.47 a container for 2 oz.  as opposed to 79 or 89 cents for 3.5 oz of whiskas filet mignon or whatever.  While it didn't captivate his palate (another advertising poem) this seemed as much for it being hard to eat due  to its tendency to flake apart as for any perceived excessive delicacy.  Not likely to buy again.

Cosmo and I Appreciate Scampi

If you give Cosmo a piece of garlic shrimp, he will eat it.  He will look around for more. He would eat it till he vomited, especially if you've left the tail on.   He will point pointedly with his nose at the container of shrimp at the bottom of the refrigerator.  If you eat some, he will stare at you and bat at the bowl.  If I give Cosmo garlic shrimp, I will wish I had kept it all for myself.

Here's a simple garlic shrimp recipe:

This recipe for shrimp is made with lots of garlic, butter, lemon juice, and fresh parsley.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 1/2 to 2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 4 to 6 medium cloves garlic, crushed and minced
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 2 to 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• salt, to taste

Preparation:

In a large skillet, heat butter over medium heat until butter stops foaming, about 30 to 45 seconds. Add the shrimp and garlic and sauté over medium heat, turning frequently until the shrimp just turn pink, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Add the parsley, lemon juice, and salt; stir well. Remove the pan from the heat and serve immediately, with rice or a salad.
Serves 4.
From: http://southernfood.about.com/od/shrimprecipes/r/bln37.htm

A Cat Will Eat Pork Adobo

In the interests of advanced cat food preference research, I purchased a small portion of pork adobo from a local plate lunch place.  I gave a piece to the cat.  He had a little trouble picking up the small morsel in his mouth, but when he finally succeeded in ingesting it, he did not ask for more.  Results inconclusive.  He may not have liked the vinegar smell.  Here is a standard recipe for the filipino delicacy:

Pork Adobo Ingredients:

1 kilo pork; cut into 2-inch pieces
1 head garlic; pounded
1/2 small onion; chopped
4 dried bay leaves
1/2 tablespoon peppercorns
6 tablespoons soy sauce
6 tablespoons vinegar
1 cup rice water
1 tablespoon oyster sauce (optional add-on)
Cooking oil

Pork Adobo Cooking Instructions:

Marinate pork in soy sauce, garlic, and peppercorns for 30 minutes.
Sauté onion, then drop the marinated pork and bay leaves. Continue sauteing until liquid has evaporated and meat starts to render fat. Pour the marinade including the bits of garlic and a cup of rice water. Continue boiling in medium fire until pork becomes tender. Pour vinegar and simmer until little sauce is left.
Another easy way of doing it is to combine the pork, vinegar, garlic, water, soy sauce, bay leaves, peppercorns, and other seasonings of your choice in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, lower heat to medium fire, and then cook until a thick sauce is formed. Serve hot!
from:  http://www.myfilipinorecipes.com/meat/

pro-active health pâté with country style turkey and giblets

So I got Cosmo some of this IAMS stuff in one of his preferred textures, "pâté," and one of his preferred flavors, turkey and giblets.  The "Country-style" of the advertising language seems to refer to the fact that the first two ingredients of this "turkey" flavor are "poultry broth" and "chicken."  Or maybe that's the "proactive health" aspect of it.   Cosmo, harried by sirens due to our (thankfully undisastrous) tsunami alert, was content to eat this, leaving a little at each sitting, but was quite happy to go back to whiskas, his favorite, and left none in the bowl.  We're kind of catnapping through the day, since we stayed up late due to the rumored arrival of tsunami waves at 3 am.  Thankfully, we're safe, with a good supply of whiskas as well as people food.

Treats, Amuse-Gueules, Temptations

You or  I would not perhaps eat anything called "Skin and Coat" Temptations.  But neither of us are cats.  Cosmo sometimes likes this sort of thing, and since he will not eat dry food any more, I get them for him.  He follows the same flavor preferences in treats as he does in canned food:  beef, turkey and chicken.  I don't think these are very high in nutrition, despite their boast of vitamins, minerals and oils.  The picture on the cover reminds me of a neighbor I knew on Maui who would take her long haired cat out each week and bathe him.  Then she would blow dry him.  She had been doing this since his kittenhood, and he didn't seem to mind it.  

I have tried more nutritious treats from the Marina Pet Supplies store, with no particular success.  They weren't too crunchy.  They were protein rich.  Cosmo didn't go for them.  Therefore they were not treats, but something else. 

Bob, my dear departed tabby, used to go for small silvery dried sardines.  I also knew a French painter who painted paintings in coffee and glued these same sardines onto his canvasses.  He was artist in residence for awhile living in the building where I currently teach at Windward Community College before it was converted to a classroom and offices, Hale A'o or the White House.  It was once the home of the director of the mental hospital that still shares the grounds with WCC.  

chicken soup for cosmo's soul

So I spent a whole day without posting anything, because that was a day that began with vomiting and other "outside the box" behavior.  I figure that no one but the hard core crazy cat ladies and gentlemen

would want to hear about it. 

        In new developments, Cosmo seems to be losing interest in Whiskas, now that I've stocked up on it.  

This will not come as a shock to ccl & gs.  I shared a bit of chicken from a home made soup, placing it 

on one of those cards that come in magazines.  It was not a fish soup as in the above picture.  Cosmo, who once was a dedicated fishophile, has moved away from our friends under the water, perhaps influenced by rumors of kidney damage caused by seafood and fish in cats of advanced age.  What will be the next cat food trend?  I'm sure Cosmo will let me know!

Filet Mignon and cats

Here are two helpful guides to knowing your filet mignon (cute little boneless cut of meat).  The first one tells you how to recognize it if it appears on your plate, garnished with flowers (or in your catfood dish,
without garnishes).  The second one shows you what part of the cow it comes from.  It would be very hard for the cat to get to the little green tenderloin part of the cow.  So these Whiskas people have helped cats out by putting filet mignon in their cat food.  What nice people.  (What would the cat do with a flower anyway?  Put it behind his ear?)

Catfood song, by King Crimson

Here we have a catfood song from the past.  After King Alaskan Crab, King Crimson.

Seared Ahi--what it is and isn't

This is what seared ahi tuna looks like.  It is not what "Whiskas" seared ahi in meaty juices looks like.  Despite the enticing menu description language, intended to "entice" cat owners, this flavor looks much like the other flavors ("filet mignon,"  "King Alaskan Crab") and has much the same texture:  brown, with an aspic-ish gel encasing it.  Perhaps the fish ones are a little pinker, the beef and turkey ones a little browner.  But it's a question of hue rather than color.  Nonetheless, this type of food hearkens back to the 

now defunct Sheba brand which was a favorite of Cosmo's in the early millennium.  And if Cosmo likes it, that's what's important.

No rabbit, please

 
So when Cosmo turned up his nose at the two buck rabbit (buck rabbit?) Instinct cat food, I decided to buy a few containers of "Whiskas" and back off on free range pumpkin and pea Peking Ducken organic high price food for awhile.  Not that he isn't worth it, but if he won't eat it what's the point?  it's only attracting insect interest (even with  a moat of dish detergent around it)  So back to smelly brown gel enhanced "in meaty juices" food.  Classic amorphous paté.  He approves of this.