The Bread Thief

We recently added a new kitten to our household, a little guy who has a passion for wheat in any form, a real wheatophile. Thus far, Cosmo has ripped into everything from baguettes to sandwich bread. Within 24 hours of his arrival, he’d made quick work of a spinach croissant while Andy’s back was briefly turned, greenery be damned! In his midnight trolling for new adventures, he even discovered a bag of bagels I’d tossed into a basket atop the fridge. Out of sight was not out of HIS mind (note the smug expression--"Ha HA! All bread is MINE!").

So we’ve taken to hiding bread products in the microwave, which, because it seals, actually keeps things fresher than you might think. In fact, since I seldom use it for its intended purpose, it has turned into an expensive, wall-mounted bread box with a window, a light and a carousel. Fancy! Of course, after awhile, the bread stales because we simply forget it’s in there.

Maybe the bag of kitten food says he only requires a fixed amount each day. Maybe the older cats are deemed by the food producer to require a fixed amount as well. But when you set up a scenario of scarcity, it can lead to unhappy, dissatisfied cats—and humans. So we tried filling the bowls and quit monitoring how much they eat, just to see what would happen. Since then, the thin cat has remained thin, the chunky cat has—surprisingly—trimmed down, and while Cosmo has continued putting on his I’ve-got-some-growing-to-do weight, he never empties the dishes.

Now the bread sits on the counter, unmolested until WE get hungry for it. And when we're not busy obsessively monitoring how much we eat, we don't manage to eat as much as when we do keep tabs on every crumb. There must be a lesson here somewhere on intelligent eating.

--Thanks to my sister-in-law, Linsey Lewellyn, a fine and imaginative photographer, who captured Cosmo's I'm-too-cute-for-you look.

Yodeling pickle anyone?

As I troll the offerings at one of my favorite websites, Archie McPhee, I’m astonished by the number of bizarre food-related gifts that are available. Can you imagine receiving any of these things for Christmas: gummy haggis, a yodeling pickle, a t-bone air freshener, or a sushi shower curtain? The bacon products alone boggle the mind: bacon-flavored toothpicks, a bacon wallet, bacon bandaids—that’s bandaids that look like strips of bacon, not bandaids for your bacon—and bacon air freshener for your car. (As if the yodeling pickle wasn’t strange enough, there’s also a remote-controlled, hopping AND yodeling lederhosen. Can you imagine? Surely, everyone needs one of these!)

Why is it that these things have such appeal? What urge is it that causes us want to inflict them on our friends and family? And what do those poor—and probably hungry—workers in third world countries think of these oddities they’re creating for those unfathomable Americans? (And how is it that I can use the word “unfathomable” twice in about week in this blog? It’s unfathomable.)

I’m not going to try to make sense of this right now. Perhaps there’s just no sense to be made. But if you’re intrigued by the idea of having your very own yodeling pickle or gifting someone with a gummy tapeworm or a corndog air freshener, check out www.archiemcphee.com. Don’t you think sushi pencil toppers would make great stocking stuffers?