Saturday, August 8, 2020

And the cat gets another bath

Hi Natty!  What's up?  Are you still in Covidland, or are you back home?  Please keep safe wherever you are.  Yeah, I had to give Floofy another bath today.  The kittens really did a number on her and gave her a most stubborn fungal infection, which turned the fur on her chest and legs dark.  I have medicine for it and at times she seems like she improved, but it's a see-saw battle and today I decide to give her a bath to help clean her up.  Giving the cat a bath the last time was exhausting, but today I was mentally and emotionally prepared for it.  I was ready to chase the cat all over the bathroom while stooping and scrubbing away.  I was half-naked, loosely clothed and ready for bathroom warfare, and I muscled my way over the cat while remaining as gentle as a kitten to my precious pussycat.  If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything!  Well it didn't make the labor easier, just tolerable.

Are you hungry?  My mother makes the best "sambal belacan" which is a hot sauce made of fresh hot peppers and "belacan" (fermented shrimp paste) plus other ingredients.  It's the best in the country and so very tasty, but the caveat is that it's very hot and spicy and you have to eat it while it's still fresh.  So I designed today's menu so Mom's "sambal belacan" provides the main flavor: fried noodles for lunch, and steak and onions with steamed rice for dinner.  I recently discovered a trick with beef, namely if you cook it long enough it becomes tender.  Of course you need a tenderizer which I won't mention here, but to the locals it should be obvious.  The downside is that the meat is always well done, but the advantage is that even the gristle and tendons become gelatinous and very tasty.  Which is great for me, since I can't afford beef tenderloin and sirloin.







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