In honor of his archery/hunting bent lately, we're doing a "Rabbit" theme for his birthday. I bought a (frozen)rabbit at the Keller's Farm Store (you can't hunt rabbits in the summer because they have parasites that are killed by the frost in the fall-- i didn't know this but Christian did). So, he is having rabbit for dinner. I found a palm-sized decoration for the dessert. I got four Rabbit figures (with real rabbit fur) for the table decoration. And we're having big crunchy carrots with dinner.
The only issue was what sort of cake/dessert. Then i thought of Mary's Pineapple Nut Cake. Yummy. Sweet (but not too sweet). Kinda like carrot cake but not as heavy with the 1 to 1 1/2 cup oil that most carrot cake recipes call for. Good for dessert... after-school snack time...breakfast...mid-morning snack time...
So, Alessandra made the Pineapple Nut Cake yesterday and iced it (cream cheese icing-- is there anything better?!) this morning. I had to hide it in the fridge in the garage to keep us from eating it before dinner tonight. The whole house smells great!
So, although the rest of the family cannot be at Christian's (very small, only the four of us) birthday dinner, you can be there in spirit. Alessandra and Christian are excited that we're having another "family heritage" recipe. They love the Paul's Baked Spinach and the Amy's Cheesy Garlic Grits from elsewhere in the Pathe Family Heritage Cookbook. Next recipe to try? The Amy/Ama/Mom Sour Cream Coffee Cake. My mouth is watering just thinking of it. Alessandra has already copied the cake recipe into her cookbook of favorites to take with her when she moves out (along with three, 3!, recipes for mac and cheese....).
In other news, our kitty is making us crazy. Or maybe it's the opposite way around. He has been losing hair (fur?). At first, we thought that it was a fungal infection and took him to the vet. She "wanded" him with black light but saw nothing. She did some skin scrapings and sent some cultures. In the meantime, we were to bathe the cat twice a week (he loved that) and cover him with a leave-in treatment of sulphur (he really loved that) once a week. A month later, the cultures came back negative and we were to stop the washings. He continued to lose hair. We then went to a different vet (recommended by one of Joe's colleagues) and he also wanded and examined the cat. Stress, he said. He orderred steroids on a wean-on then wean-off regimen. We did that for two weeks and things seemed to have stabilized. Then, we went on vacation, Alessandra went to camp, we went to the family reunion-- and the silly cat started losing hair again. We did another course of steroids and antibiotics but nothing. The vet recommended skin samples/biopsy. We did that (general anesthesia, overnight at the vet's, mucho $$). Everything came back negative. Everything has been a dead-end. So, we are out of options. We'll just have an ugly cat. The vet said that he thinks that we may just have a high-strung kitty who was freaked out when we tried to add a second kitty in the spring and just never got over it. Bueno. I cannot imagine doing this with seven animals like you had. One kitty is enough worry and concern. For a "free, stray kitty", he has gotten to be an expensive and involved venture!
Off to get a branch of mint to place next to the bunny on the cake.
It's true that we don't know what we've got
until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't
know what we've been missing until it arrives.
No comments:
Post a Comment