cat food diary: meatloaf/cat

cat food diary: meatloaf/cat: "So many catfoods look like meatloaf that I thought I'd try Cosmo on some real meatloaf. Since I'm in a busy period of my work year, I didn'..."

cat food diary: Cosmo en Vera Cruz (Mahimahi en Cosmo)

cat food diary: Cosmo en Vera Cruz (Mahimahi en Cosmo): "So Cosmo and I took a culinary trip to Veracruz, when we shared an order of Mahimahi Veracruzano, from Serg's Mexican food stand in Manoa n..."

Cosmo en Vera Cruz (Mahimahi en Cosmo)

So Cosmo and I took a culinary trip to Veracruz, when we shared an order of Mahimahi Veracruzano, from Serg's Mexican food stand in Manoa near the university.  I was celebrating the last meeting of my Andean class.  A more logical choice for this would have been the peruvian favorite, Ceviche, which was on the menu, or Fish Tacos, which made me think of "Pishtakos" or Peruvian Fat Vampires, who steal people's fat, but then I thought of that and I didn't want to eat anything reminding me of it.  So Mahi Veracruzano it was, with a tie both to Mexico and to Hawaii.
When I gave the fish to Cosmo, I removed the rather spicy tomato and chile based sauce, which also contained green olives.  He enjoyed the small white morsels, which were easy to eat, with that wonderful fish taste but without oilyness (neither of us likes oily).  He did reach a saturation point and went back to whiskas filet mignon.  He says that the next time I go to Vera Cruz  (Cortez's first Mexican beach head) I should stash him in my carry-on.

meatloaf/cat

So many catfoods look like meatloaf that I thought I'd try Cosmo on some real meatloaf.  Since I'm in a busy period of my work year, I didn't feel up to making one (and having all those meatloaf leftovers).  I went to my local Food Land and bought a single serving of "Chef Made" meatloaf from the deli.  The chef had opted for something between the gravy based loaf and the tomato sauce loaf.  It had a reddish, brownish sauce with a few caramelized onions and a stray mushroom.  At first Cosmo was quite enthusiastic about it.  It had a firm texture, a messy sauce and an indeterminate meat smell.  Then he abruptly stopped liking it, though he sat by an offered morsel for awhile as if waiting for something better to fall from the sky.  Then he went off to eat some low-grade Friskies Turkey and Giblets that I'd picked up at the liquor store for fifty cents (lower grade than Fancy Feast at least).  It looked almost identical to the meatloaf minus sauce, onions and token mushroom.  A qualified success.  Some of you may recognize the Kliban cartoon from the distant past.  Now LOL cats talk about meatloaf cats as well.

Yorkies, Lamb and liver stew

So though Cosmo still appreciates fancy lamb cat food, with its grayish paté texture, he is not enthusiastic about "Nature's variety" Homestyle Lamb and Liver Stew, a new flavor and brand which has appeared at the local pet food store.  Perhaps it's the alarming variety of ingredients:  Nature's Variety canned cat food contains fresh quality meats, fruits, vegetables, and chelated minerals for better nutirent absorption. This hearty stew contains all natural lamb, chicken, spinach and red peppers enhanced with added vitamins and minerals More details...

Protein Source: Lamb

Carb Source: Potatoes

Life Stage: All Life Stages

Special Needs: Gluten-free

I don't think he really cares whether it's gluten free.  Spinach and red peppers seem a bit  excessive.

As I waited to purchase the cat food, I watched a woman with a tiny Yorkie on her shoulder buy giant bags of foods that vastly outweighed the diminutive canine.  The store owner said that the owner of the bicycle store next door had a Yorkie that seemed even smaller than the shoulder-riding one.  The lady seemed disappointed that the bicycle store was closed, either because she wanted to prove that the dog was not in fact smaller than hers, or wanted to be relieved that there was in the world a hamster-sized dog when hers was only guinea-pig- sized small.

Ceviche Cosmo

So I was making ceviche for my andean literature class, and despite having avoided giving him raw fish in the past, and despite his not particularly liking it (he rejected the tuna in the sushi I bought for the class when we were discussing Fujimori) I tried him on the ceviche of ono and marlin which I had marinated in lime and lemon juice.  He liked it.  He continued liking the leftover fish which I brought home from the class.  Then this morning he didn't like it.  When I cooked it, he liked it again.  So I believe Cosmo is a little bit peruvian.

Cosmo Had a Little Lamb

Yes, Cosmo had a little Instinct Lamb cat food, more than a little.  This food has a gray color, but a fairly firm paté texture.  And if you are what you eat, he might look something like the cat above, only older, and with a lot more black in his fur, and cuter, and he wouldn't let me put something like this on his head...

Deer Cosmo: Instinct Venison

Cats might chase deer, as this picture shows.  This morning, after racing through a can of Weruva 9 liver,

Cosmo wolfed up some Instinct Venison.

More lives (and liver) for Cosmo

So, since Cosmo had gotten bored with Safeway priority foods, despite their odorousness, and had vomited after eating them, and since they seemed rather adulterated, I decided to counterbalance with 

a rather unsmelly rather unadulterated flavor with a cute name and relatively few ingredients.  The description is also cute.  And any advertising ploy that seems to promise 8 additional lives for Cosmo AND misspells "palate" has my attention.  Although its texture made this formula hard to eat, Cosmo gamely attempted, requesting top-ups when the dregs of the food became plastered against the sides of his dish.

Here's the online spiel

Your cat will enjoy every bite of this boneless, skinless, white breast meat chicken, with chunks of chicken liver in a delicious gravy. Enough to entice every pallet . . . and who knows, your cat might just gain eight more lives! Did we mention the chicken is antibiotic free, hormone free and free range chicken breast? (GRAIN FREE)

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Important Information

Ingredients
Chicken (Boneless, Skinless, White Breast Meat), Water Sufficient For Processing Balance, Chicken Liver, Thickening Agent (Tapioca Starch and/or Potato Flour and/or Xanthan Gum), Sunflower Seed Oil, Taurine, Complete Vitamins and Minerals

Priority Vomiting

So Cosmo doesn't mind these Priority cat foods available from Safeway nationwide.  He even will eat the kind that looks like worms and contains cheese globs, a texture which he usually disdains.  I think he likes them because they smell really bad, always a plus.  They also cause him to vomit, which he doesn't mind but I do.  Vomiting is sometimes a first sign of a contaminated food.  Of course he vomits up free range organic grain free never recalled high priced cat foods too.  He's an equal opportunity vomiter.  While I was writing this, he got on my lap and put his paw on the delete button, so this is in effect a second draft.  

maui tacos okay with cats

The maui fish taco has cabbage drizzled with a creamy sauce, laid on a soft tortilla, with a side of rice and beans.  The cat doesn't care about that.  What the cat likes about the taco is that it contains grilled fish.

He will eat it.

The Chicken Sausage Experiment

So it's not much of an experiment.  You sauté some chicken/herb sausage roundels with maui onions, you mix them in with various colored (pink, purple, yellow) new potatoes and spinach, and then, as you're tipping the potatoes into the sautéed sausage, you kind of just let a piece of sausage fall into a bed of whiskas filet mignon cat food in the cat's food bowl.  Then you  step back and see if he'll find it among the forests of cat food.  I imagine you can guess the results.