Someone Really Thinks Like Me

I came across this Blog Post and had to reply:

You sound like me. My bookshelves are stuffed with over 200 cookbooks and the collection keeps growing. Do I use them all? Of course not, but I know what each one contains, because I too read cookbooks like they are novels.

Finally, after cooking for family and friends, I’ve decided it’s time to cook for my fuzzy son, Mikey. I’m working on a people-dog cookbook and having fun trying to adapt my tried and true recipes so their ingredients are all dog-safe.

My cookbooks have a history; some of them are stuffed with clippings from the New York Times and tons of magazines, others with faded bindings as a result of years of living under skylights. There are the new ones that are still on my living room coffee table and old community cookbooks with crumbling plastic bindings. I may not remember the stories in the novels I read in the last month, but, somehow, I remember what’s in each cookbook.

Could I ever throw any of them away? I don’t think so because each one is a living thing, having lived through years of abuse on my kitchen counter and next to the sputtering frying pan. I’ve tried to resort to using cookbooks on my Kindle and recipes from the Internet, but they’re not the same. Cookbooks have to be fully dressed; they can’t be squeaky clean and simplistic.

I’m hoping my cookbook will be fun and practical and interesting. In its infancy, you can see it on my website: http://www.peoplefoodforpets.com.

Who Needs Another Cookbook?

I have over 200 cookbooks sitting on my shelves. I use perhaps one or two recipes from each and, over the years, have altered each one and made up new ones that could be somewhat similar.

The pumpkin bread is a take off on one of the a recipes for banana bread that I selected from James Beard’s Beard on Bread (1973).  The whole wheat flour is one of my additions. Even way back in 1973 I was into whole grains and healthy cooking, trying to sneak nutritious ingredients into my recipes, but I still refuse to substitute for butter. I use 1% milk, but don’t mess with my butter.

My family and friends have been encouraging me to share my recipes, but I seemed never to have the time or inspiration to write the cookbook. Until now. Mikey is getting older, is a really fussy eater, and I have had my doubts about all the treats we stock for him.

If I could come up with a way to make food for Mikey with very little more effort than I now spend on everyday cooking, I figured we could all benefit. I started with treats, but will add veggies and main dishes as soon as I can figure them out.

My only concern is providing all the nutrients necessary to keep Mikey, who is a senior citizen, healthy. I concluded that it would help if I gave Mikey a daily multivitamin. Doggie vitamins aren’t expensive and are available on line and in retail pet stores.

Mikey had his first vitamin yesterday, but gave us a scare when he ignored the piece of chicken we offered him. I immediately started to worry that the “Mommy” biscuits hadn’t agreed with him and could have been the problem. The only way we could test Mikey’s condition was to suggest to him (You don’t tell Mikey what to do, you just make suggestions.) that we go for a walk, his favorite activity. When he acted like his normal “Mike-iac” self, jumping and spinning around, we concluded we had been snookered.

Mikey won again. And he ate the piece of chicken the minute we got home.