furlinedteacup

Gratuitous Kittens Picture

Too Hot to Handle (Cooking)

The hot weather last week completely KO'd my desire to cook anything. We're on the 4th floor without AC, so the idea of heating up the house just to prepare dinner was a no-go. Hence all the eating out and ordering in that went on last week. And whenever I eat out too much, I rebound with a fury.

 

This weekend, at Trader Joe's, I must have piled every attractive looking fruit and vegetable into my cart. We dove into that treasure trove last night with stir fry featuring boneless beef short ribs (cooked with a drizzle of honey and some brown sugar) cut into bite-size chunks, cabbage, broccoli slaw, bell peppers, carrots, and summer squash over rice. I meant to take a photo of it but it was too yummy and we were too hungry so it was scarfed down in record time.

 

Trader Joe's produce section is an excellent pit stop for pre-sliced veggies for salads or stir frys. Just knowing that you can skip the chopping and clean up process makes it that much easier to motivate (and faster) to get a healthy dinner on the table.

 

Tonight, thinking about pan frying chicken breasts and serving them with a red potato and green bean salad.

P.S. After all my online searching, I just made brownies with my Baker's Edge Brownie Pan instead of anything fancy.

To Make

I'm always collecting bookmarks for a number of yummy treats. Not sure what  I want to bake this weekend, so I've been clicking through to see if anything causes me to lick my lips, and these all sound promising...

• Smitten Kitchen's Chocolate Yogurt Snack Cakes. It was the bite-size presentation that sucked me in since I always try to bake minis of anything I am bringing to work to share. And the idea of a lighter chocolate treat meets a warm summer's day snack requirements.
• Chow's Marble Cheesecake Bars look cool, creamy and delicious.
• Serious Eats' Pain au Chocolat Cinnamon Rolls with Crème Fraîche Icing and Walnuts seem to be a lot easier to prepare than they look (thanks to being cheaty and using premade puff pastry.)
• A coworker brought in her copy of Cook Yourself Thin so I could try making some of the banana muffins. She as *really* trying to get me to make the red velvet cake that uses beets, but that just seems wrong to me.

While I try to decide if baking snacks today>heating up the kitchen, I'm going to have a Stirrings Lemon Drop. Ah, summer...

Kitty Babies

On Sunday afternoon, we got to go pick up our new kitty babies. We arrived with our kitty carrier and were pleasantly surprised that our adventurous boys (following resident kitty Rosie's lead) climbed right in, ready to go.

On the short drive across town, the kitties were silent, except for one squeak after about 10 minutes. The boys spent a solid half hour running around checking out all the nooks and crannies in the apartment, only finding three teeny crawl spaces we had not anticipated, all of which were easily blocked.

Born in March, and abandoned in a box with the rest of their litter in the Central Valley, the boys are now at the super high energy stage of kittenhood. They need at least two rounds of feather-on-a-stick per day to tire them out. And I don't mean just 10 or 15 minutes at a time either.

Sunday night, I stopped after about that long to write a quick email. I hit send then swiveled my chair around to find both boys at my feet...and with the feather-on-a-stick in Bolvar's mouth. He made sure I understood that it was still playtime now, thanks.

It's interesting to watch how they interact. Despite their youth, they are already bonded and spend much of their time together. In addition to the vigorous wrestling matches that break out after feather play time, they run laps up and down the hallway and take turns washing each others faces at bath time.

We are already getting a sense of their individual quirks. Bolvar is our hunter gatherer. From bringing me the feather toy when playtime is not long enough to bringing us the miscellaneous cord he finds behind our desks or bookcase, he is always looking for the next shiny object to bring us. And when he catches the feather toy, he restrains it with both feet and bites it.

Marcello, tho he does carry around his favorite mousey, is more of a lounger than a hunter. His naps are longer and more stretched out across the sofa. He makes eyes at you as he tries to fight back the napping urges. He's the first one on the bed at bedtime, planting himself at my feet.

Overall they seem to have settled in pretty quickly, making themselves at home. But don't just take my word for it -- I think this photo of Marcello speaks for itself...

A House Without a Kitty is not a Home

It's been far too quiet around these parts since Mister Bill's passing.

We gave ourselves time to grieve and get used to the absence of Bill.

Once we were ready to let some furry little ones into our heart, we started our research. We never once considered purchasing a purebred cat, or buying from a pet store. There are far too many orphaned and abandoned pets looking for homes to do that in my opinion.

The SF Bay Area has a number of cat rescue organizations, many of which post on craigslist when they have fostered animals needing placements in permanent homes. It was through craigslist that we found Wonder Cat Rescue.

I was impressed with their adoption application and its thoroughness in ensuring a prospective cat adopter understood adopting a pet is a significant lifetime commitment, not something to be taken lightly. After filling it out, I emailed to express interest in a pair of kittens we'd seen.

I received a prompt email back from Stephanie to let us know that although those two sisters had been spoken for, she had two brothers looking for a home. We set up an appointment to meet the kittens and have a playdate under the watchful eye of their foster parents.

When we arrived to meet them, we were welcomed to the apartment by the resident kitty. She did a great job of showing the initially skeptical kittens that we were worth checking out, what with all our chin scratchies and pets.

The boys soon determined that we seemed to be OK, and that we had toys, and surrendered themselves to 45 minutes of mildly strenuous play while we talked to the foster parents.

Fun Fact: You can play with 1 mouse on a string with two kitties at one time provided you can keep mouse end and string end moving simultaneously and with 6 inches between them.

This afternoon, we got the notification that our adoption was approved. So now we're just waiting to hear back from the foster parents as to a good day and time to pick them up. To say that we are thrilled is an understatement.

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San Francisco Bay Area Cat Rescues

• 13th Street Cat Rescue
• California Underdog Rescue and Education (C.U.R.E.)
• Home at Last Rescue
• Itty Bitty Orphan Kitty Rescue
• Peninsula Cat Works
• Safe Haven Animal Sanctuary
• Wonder Cat Rescue

San Francisco Bay Area SPCAs and Shelters

• Berkeley East Bay Humane Society
• Contra Costa County Animal Services
• Monterey County Animal Services
• Peninsula Humane Society
• San Francisco SPCA
• Santa Cruz Animal Services

Some Seriously Fun Eats at the Eat Real Festival

It's always good to be a Bay Area foodie-- there's a new food festival thunk up every week or two, like the Eat Real Festival, coming to Oakland, California from August 28 to 30.

Similar in spirit to the recent Serious Eats Great American Food festival, Eat Real will feature food+music, but without the trek to Shoreline. The event is free of charge to check out tho presumably the food cart fare is out of your pocket once something catches your eye.

I'm personally most interested in the Beer Shed, curated by David McLean of Magnolia Brewpub and promising a rotating selection of Northern California's best handcrafted IPAs, imperials and cask ales on tap. Yum.

UPDATE: Their twitter feed has started confirming the participants: linden st, magnolia, drakes, moonlight, half moon bay, triple rock, thirsty bear, marin and 21st amendment.

What to do When Your Garden Runneth Over...

Spotted in the Slow Food SF newsletter:

What to do with extra produce
Got too much fruit in your home garden? Did that zucchini or arugula get a bit out of control? Food Runners will be happy to help! They harvest your excess and donate to local food banks and shelters. There is a particular need for fresh vegetables and fruits. Please contact: Nancy Hahn, 415 608-0114.

goodbye mister bill kitty

You are very much loved and will forever be missed.

I am so lucky to have had 17 years with such a smart and handsome kitty. And believe it or not, I didn't pick Bill -- he found his way to me through my record store boss when I was in college.

You see, she was house hunting in Chula Vista, and saw a Free Kittens sign.

She knew I had just moved into my own place -- an improbable Alice in Wonderland style cottage behind a house, with a couple of acres of canyonlands fenced in. And I missed my kitties at home terribly.

Thus, she and her boyfriend Todd picked up this little guy, and headed back to San Diego.

"Did you still want a kitty?" she asked me on the phone while I was at the counter. "Yes..." I replied.

"Well, stay there!" she commanded.

An hour or so later she walked in with this little guy.

He was so tiny he fit into the palm of one hand. Upon meeting me he mewed until I snuggled him into my neck, at which point he started purring and nuzzling my neck. I was immediately in love with him.

He definitely preferred his spacious SoCal yard to our tiny San Francisco apartments. But he made due.

I will carry him around in my heart always.

Summertime Baking

One of the small pleasures of living in San Francisco is our cool weather continues through most of the Summer. Which means we can actually entertain the idea of baking during the berry months without getting up at the crack of dawn.

Here are a few that have tempted me, to be added to the "Must Bake" list:

• Strawberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake
• Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler

If I had a deep fryer, I'd also be after a good recipe for Fried Zucchini chips. We had some at Rose Pistola last night. They were so good. So very evil and delicious.

why so quiet

Things have been quiet around here lately not due to lack of things to write about, but because I have been preoccupied with RL. After several weeks of issues, my beloved kitty has been diagnosed with cancer(lymphoma, intestinal). I just haven't felt like writing much.