"I'm a ninja cat...I am invisible..."

Just for kicks I had to add this photo:

If I can surmize what he's thinking, I belive it'd be: "If I can't see her, she can't see me...yeah..."

I walked in on Foster playing in the living room after work and he didn't have time to race to the favourite hiding spot. Whadda guy.

More kittie kronicles - the 3 cat pileup...

Little did I know that cats are stackable like Lego.  Take my 'fraidy cats that still are EXTREMELY shy of humans for instance.  In the shot below, you can distinguish 2 of the bodies by the separation of stripes and greyness piled up against the wall:

What you don't see in the above picture is the fact that all three are indeed stacked on top of each other and hiding the third cat.  Poor Foster is the one squashed underneath all of this as evidenced by the picture below of the other side of the ironing board where you can almost see the dividing line between the top cat (Mercedes) and the bottom cat (Foster).  Oscar's head is wedged between the other 2 butts, and may be that sliver of lighter grey shading between the 2 darker bodies if you look carefully.What would cause such a sight?  Just another setback for little Mercedes who decided that life under the washing machine would be much better than being exposed to the light.  So like the true vampire-cat-caver that she is, she refused to come out to drink, eat or use the litter box for almost 2 complete days, and only stirred at night.  Meanwhile, the boys were looking for, and trying to rescue their sister who didn't want to be rescued at all.  Oy.

3 bucks worth of dowelling from Home Depot, and problem solved - I've got a sliding door blocker so that no kitty can re-enter the washing machine area.  

The boys are now becoming more adventurous and starting to take chances on guessing whether I'm truly asleep, or trying to spring a trap on them.  The other night while I had dozed lightly off (did I mention that I'm sleeping in the living room now to get them more accustomed to my presence?) I woke up to see Oscar's white muzzle in the distance staring at me, while a pair of ears and 2 beady eyes were peering over the arm of the couch directly at me.  Very sneaky and cute.  Once I made eye contact they were both off to hide again, but I think there's some mild progress being made.  After speaking to the cats' foster mom, she mentioned that it had taken about 2 months for the boys to come near her voluntarily - and that was forced with harnesses and a leash to tether the kitties to her, ensuring they got used to humans.  Yikes.

So alas, I wait in patience for the day even one of them decides that I may not be entirely vile after all.  The feral part of them is still holding on strongly.

Gawd these little dudes are a loooooooooooot of work.  I'm happy they're here - but still they're a loooooooooooooot of work.  ;)

The Cat Diaries - 1st Week

Ok, no updated pictures for this entry - no cats to be seen after week 1.

That's not entirely true.  I have seen them come out, but we have to play a coy little game where they can come out and stare at me, but if I look at them too long, they'll dive back under the couch.  They're distrusting of me still, and there's nothing but time and patience that can cure that.  

They've been exclusively nocturnal thus far, seeking the cover of the evening shade before venturing out from under the sofa bed where they are literally burrowing presently, but when they do come out they play hard.  

Foster is the ringleader, and the brains behind most of the things the little beasts have gotten into.  The third night when he was feeling a little more intrepid, I awoke to hear a small crashing sound and a sheet of paper floating towards the floor - that was Foster misjudging the height he had to jump to make it on top of my dresser.  However, when he thought I had gone back to sleep, he tried a second time and made it up top - only to be bored in 3 seconds when he discovered there wasn't anything cool to play with up there. Subsequently, he jumped down, headed for my closet door, and started to sl-sl-slide it open and crawl in.  He popped back out a minute later, left my room, and came back with the Oscar and Mercedes (now that I've settled on her name) so that they could all pile into my laundry basket inside.  At least it's all stuff that needed to be washed anyway.

Other discoveries I've made in the morning:

• 2 destroyed catnip toys (must get toys with stronger material than cotton)
• Front closet door open (also where the cat food happens to be right now)
• Fridge magnets skewed oh-so-strangely downward (as if someone had misjudged a jump and slid down the fridge)
• Horrific scratching noises at 3am in the morning - rushing out just in time to see Oscar running out from behind the TV in the living room.  He'd fallen between the TV cabinet and the wall and was scrambling to get back up.  When I looked in the morning light, there was a static-y grey streak of cat hair clinging to the wall and leading straight downward.

Ah yes, the little night owls like to rock n' roll all night, and sleep in every day.

So while they still haven't emerged during the daylight hours (even when I'm not home - I've left wet food out during the day, and it's gone untouched - highly unusual for them), I think I'm making some progress in getting them to trust me.  Foster stares at me from just below the "couch visibility line" - the line of sight where he can just see my face, and as long as I don't look directly at him (pretend to read a book, play with my Blackberry or concentrate on the TV), he'll continue to stare.  Every night he's gotten a little braver and a little closer, but still just below the couch visibility line.

Funny though, from the foster mom's description of the cats, I would've thought I'd see more of Oscar, and less of Mercedes.  Quite the opposite.  Foster's supposed to be the most normally social of the threesome, Oscar is like the "second banana," preferring to let another cat go first, then following in its footsteps, and Mercedes is the quiet and reserved one. Oscar's totally keeping to himself, and Mercedes will follow Foster around and is out much more than Oscar.  

I'm still discovering who they are, but at least I've finally settled on names that I like.  I'm also looking into supplementing their diet with more natural (raw) foods.  Aye-ya (Chinese expression of...uh...you'd have to hear it to understand its context I guess) - the more I read about food and nutrition (for both humans and animals), the more I wish I hadn't.  So homeopathic/natural foods for cats.  Who would've thought there'd be sooooooo many books on the subject?  Ok, so the books are biased against the pet food industry - it is a somewhat unregulated business, and you really don't want to know what goes into pet food that has already been banned or deemed unusable for humans (let alone animals).  Ick.  I wish I could go back to being ignorant of what I put into my cats.  Too late now...my food explorations shall now include my new fuzzy adoptees to a certain degree.

I may have more to write once they experience the housekeeper tomorrow.  Until then we'll see if Foster comes even closer to me tonight to play the I-see-you-but-you-can't-see-me game...

And then there were three...

Ok, so while I had told myself that I'd wait a year until I got another cat, I realized that I was okay with getting another now, about 5 months after my little Skeeter passed away.

Toronto Cat Rescue is the organization I adopted the threesome from. Their original names are Joey, Jake and Penelope. I'm not a fan of those names in particular, so I've decided to rename them. I've only figured out 2 of the 3 names thus far though - Joey will become "Foster" (very appropriate), Jake will become "Oscar" (I love this name), and Penelope will be...well...I haven't decided, but it may turn out to be "Blakely" or "Mercedes." We'll see if either of those stick. That's the nice thing about cats. They so rarely come when they're called, you don't really have to worry about naming them. The dark blob below is Foster.
This one is Oscar:
And this one is...Blakely/Mercedes/I'm not sure yet.
The pictures above are the last time I actually saw them. Ever since Tuesday, they've been hiding inside my couch as illustrated by the lumps on the side under the coverlet in the picture below:
Thus far, they've only come out at night, and are still very distrusting of me (after all, I did kidnap them out of their comfy home). But when they do come out at night, it makes me think that I've adopted night owls, not cats. The amount of crashing, shifting and snooping around that they do as a pack makes me think they're not as shy as they let on...I've woken up to cats falling off the dresser, 3 cats playing in my closet in the laundry hamper, my toothbrush on the ground, one torn up catnip toy, and a whole lotta scampering from behind the TV. Good thing I fall back asleep pretty easily...

Here's hoping they mellow out sooner than later.

It's been a while, hasn't it? Breadmaking 101.

I knew I'd get lazy with the blogging thing...but here's a little look at the results of my experience at McCall's Bread Making course:

An all day workshop with nothing to do but mix, shape and bake bread. The following pics are the results of the full day of baking (which I did give away several loaves to the family, and dumped a couple off at work, but I still had a lot of bread leftover after that).

I don't know if you can tell from the pic above or not, but the braided thing is supposed to be an alligator/crocodile, the loaf is an onion bread (with a collapsed top - you can't tell from the pic, but the guy put it on the top shelf of the oven, and while it was rising/baking, it hit the roof and collapsed :( to give me a square-ish loaf), there's brioche, and regular ol' buns.

This pic has (clockwise from the top) cheddar herb loaves, country bread and egg bread. While not the prettiest creations, they were all reeeeeeeeeally tasty. I have to say, the course was excellent, I just wish it didn't take all day! My attention span started to wane after a few hours (the workshop was from 9:30am to almost 5pm).

So am I better at baking bread? Marginally, but I'm still having trouble with the sloppy ciabatta dough. Gah!

And the winner is...

Awesome!  Check out what the nice people at Porter Novelli gave me!  

Ok, so in the spirit of being me, I tore open the whole basket without thinking of taking a picture of the wonderful gift that I won online (yup, I won an online contest - woohoo)! That basket contained these little wonders:

• Gerolsteiner mineral water (never heard of, but it can't be bad...it's mineral water after all...)
• the bag of Schatzle Spatzle (I love the name, and would buy it solely on that criteria alone)
• a tin of vegetable pate (that doesn't seem quite right, but we'll try that with company just to see if we get a good consensus on whether or not it's real food or not)
• cream and caramel Vivani organic dark chocolate bar (mmm...)
• 2 baby Vivani organic dark chocolate bars (mmm...)
• the package of pumpernickel (that will probably be eaten with the veggie pate)
• a jar of gourmet gherkins (ok, so these I'll hoard for myself since I loooooove pickles)
• a Ritter Sport chocolate w/ marzipan bar (really?  It's a German brand?  I never knew...)
• a jar of hot mustard (another thing I'll hoard - I can always use more mustard)
• organic instant chocolate mousse (something I'll have to share with company again)
• a copy of "Taste of Germany - Contemporary German Cuisine for All Seasons" cookbook
• ...and an autographed copy of "Olaf's Kitchen" cookbook - which I did see at Costco, and is now in my proud possession (like I need another cookbook.  But I don't have a German cookbook yet...)

Maybe this will inspire a new class on German cuisine at work...

Heehee!  I just had to share this - it's all things foodie German-style!  Nothing much to comment on since I haven't tried any of the foods, but if anything interesting comes about, I'll be sure to make note!  Yay!  Free stuff!

An appreciation of the common potato chip.

So while I was at the grocery store getting some dill for my salmon dinner, I was inspired by a potato.  I dunno why, but I had to buy one to make potato chips.  A 53 cent russet, a long soak in cold water (according to the Joy of Cooking), and I was set...

...for a little deep frying...

...and voila!  Love the paper towel blotter.  If you look carefully, you can see the difference between the white paper towel vs. the grey area that has absorbed my potato chip grease.  Check the top right corner for proof - no potato chip there, but a shadowy outline of oil.

Pros and cons of making my own potato chips:

• Pro: I got to flavour the chips to my liking, and it cost me less than a bag of store-bought chips to make.  A light dusting of truffle salt on half the batch, oak-smoked salt on the other half.  Awesome.
• Con: My condo smells like a deep fryer.
• Pro: I now understand where the grease goes on a potato chip.  Once the chip has cooled, the oil becomes "one" with the chip.  I kept cracking chips as I was dabbing off hot grease until I figured out this bit of magic.  Wait, is this a pro or a con?  I guess this is a pro since this experiment should curb my lust for potato chips knowing how sponge-like potatoes are with grease on them.
• Con: I ate the whole batch regardless of the aforementioned point.
• Pro (to make me feel better): I know my potato chips were made with only 3 ingredients - potato, canola oil and salt - which coincides with my quest to eat fewer highly-processed products (amongst other vague eating ideals - read my very first blog entry if you need to reference what I'm talking about).  I can also consider part of my project a locally made product...the potato was grown in Ontario after all.

Anything's worth trying at least once, ya?  If I could only get rid of this @*%(#&! fried smell now...

Yorkshire pudding...not good without the beef drippings.

Ya, 'nuff said. You can't make real Yorkshire pudding unless you've got beef fat of some sort. It turns out pretty blah otherwise. Had a craving, thought I could fulfil it with butter - alas, it wasn't meant to be.

My 2 cents.

Sausages and ciabatta...redux.

It's been a while since I've made an effort to put anything here, but not for the lack of actually doing anything constructive in the meantime...

Having a few days of vacation, I thought it'd be a good time to try making the sausages and another batch of bread again. I also hung out with Spends2Much making giant spritz cookies (click to see her review of the Williams-Sonoma giant cookie press).

Here's the summary of my time spent making sausages and ciabatta again:

Batch of Jerk sausages 2: Drier marinade...needed more of the gooey green mixture (probably a cup per pound of sausage to make a discernible difference in flavouring. Instead of tasting like Jerk, they tasted...oh...like sausages that were seasoned with some spices. No heat from the jalapenos I used. *sigh* Note to self for next time - remember that the marinade has salt to begin with...gotta go lighter on the briny goodness.

Batch of ciabatta 2: Poolish as seen above - looks the same...used multi-grain flour for kicks this time though. Thought it would add more flavour to the plainish flour I was using...

The dough after kneading and resting...uh oh...this is starting to look a little familiar...but at least this one's sloppier than the last batch. (If you didn't know, ciabatta dough is supposed to be ooey gooey.)Zoinks, this looks EXACTLY like the last batch...except tastier from the multi-grain poolish I used.

Lessons learned:

1. I should really pick up a recipe book for sausages.
2. I should take a beginner's course on bread baking.
3. No matter how matter-of-fact my descriptors of sausage making may be, taking a picture of a bowl of sausages still makes me giggle for all the wrong reasons.

An American Thanksgiving...

Maybe it'd be better if we only celebrated one Thanksgiving a year.  Thanks Jane for being American so I could add another day of autumnal gluttony to my calendar...

I didn't get a chance to take a pic of the original potluck spread of main courses (I might have been engrossed in the cheese plates on the other side of the room), but here's the aftermath of people digging into the carbohydrate lover's feast:

What you may not be able to see in the above pic are all the potatoes one may have been able to enjoy - scalloped, mashed, roasted, sweet potato...geez, is that potato salad of some sort in the foreground that I didn't get to?  There actually is turkey on this table too.  But the highlight of most meals is dessert...  
Nice job on the dessert for those that brought 'em.  Good variety.  I'm really a savory person, so after dessert I went for more soup, but the carnage wrought on the dessert table was quite a sight to behold.Desserts of particular interest included:If you can't tell, that is an authentic beater sticking out of the cheesecake, not an edible replica.  As the story goes (and it has verifiable sources), the beater fell in while the batter for the cheesecake was being poured into the springform pan, and instead of pulling it out, it was baked with the rest of the cake.  Call it food art if you will.  

And then there's this lovely pear charlotte:...and no, that's not my shadow impatiently looming over the cake waiting to dig in as I take this photograph.  Both of the above cakes won kudos for presentation and originality from the crowd at large...and they were extremely tasty too.

I'd write more, but I think i feel a carb-crash starting to set in.  The eyes were truly bigger than the stomach tonight.  

I'll also say that not many people planned their evening well - just about everyone in the room wore pants that didn't have drawstrings.