March 18th - Dinner à la cat

19/03/2008 by Brigid.

There was an unscheduled change to tonight’s menu in the Rynne household. Normally, at the risk of deterring potential dinner guests, I would not admit to feeding my husband anything less than the finest, freshest, meat. However, this evening’s plat du jour had a decidedly recycled flavour to it.

It all started yesterday afternoon, when a roar from John alerted me to a feline misdemeanour downstairs. I was, at the time, in the process of patching a small hole that Foggy had chewed in my new living room curtains. But that is another story.

I arrived on the ground floor in time to see Foggy’s tail vanish under our coffee table, pursued by John uttering a torrent of Anglo-Saxon invective. The evidence for the prosecution was, indeed, compelling. The frozen chicken that I had left, still in its wrapper, to thaw on the kitchen window-sill had found its way across the work surface, and was now missing a substantial amount of breast meat.

Cats are very sensitive creatures, but not always the most intelligent. Seeing me upset, Fog made the fundamental error of emerging from his hiding place to find out what was wrong. For which stupidity, I chased him round the living room brandishing said half-defrosted fowl. John, understandably, said “I’m not eating that, it has teeth marks in it. I’ll do a Bolognese tonight”, but parsimony prevented me from chucking the whole thing in the bin.

Instead I carefully jointed the chicken, cooked the remains of the breast for the cats, and turned the untouched legs and wings into a nice casserole. “It isn’t often that one has to share the cats’ dinner”, said John, carefully examining the contents of his fork.

I’ll gladly drink to that.

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