Hi. Rumplestiltz here. I know, I know – you’re thinking: “
Whaaa…..? Frank and Damian’s cat isn’t named Rumplestiltz!” Well folks, guess what. You aren’t the center of your pathetic little universe. We are.
Me and Tigertoots over here have had it. We are sick and tired of pandering to all you fancy-pants gourmets all the time. Every freakin’ time you come over, it’s all about us getting pushed around. Our normal roaming space gets compressed and overly dusted, and then we have to stay over in the office like a couple of pariahs. And the smells –OH the smells! You folks
ooohh and
aaahh over the dishes you are cooking, but all Tigertoots and I can smell is FEET. That’s right, humans, you have stinky feet. If you aren’t willing to lick your toes completely clean, do a cat a favor and put a sprinkle on it already, won’t ya? Attend a class like this one in Phinney Ridge—it will help you understand.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that the new kid, Shawn, has really been dragging her feet lately about writing up your
monthly Wireless Space Newspaper. Usually, she throws a mild temper tantrum or two about not having enough time, but then at the last minute, just before you and your reeking feet all get together again, she ekes something out and sends it to Space.
Well, this month she really blew it. Not only did Shawn go out and find a full-time job at Harborview, she didn’t even ATTEND April’s meeting at our place. So, not only did she not have enough time AGAIN, but she decided to rely on everyone else for their take on the day’s Thai-flavored events. Even a canary can tell you that THAT isn’t going to work very well. I hope her new bosses know what kind of jewel they hired over there.
Well, then the other day, I really had my whiskers blown back. Tigertoots, who’s like a brother to me, caught up with me as I was heading in for my post-litterbox nap, and asked, “Hey, Rumplestiltz, don’t you write?”
Muffin-FORKER, I thought. I mean, we’ve been sharing a litterbox for a long time, but me and Tigertoots, we don’t go around getting all up in each other’s personal business all that much, if you know what I mean. I glared down my whiskers at him. “What?” I responded.
Tigertoots swallowed hard and asked again. “Weren’t you a writer before? In the Old Country?”
I felt paralyzed with unexpected emotion. The Old Country. For just a moment, I was lost in the memories…Mama FatCat, Louis, and my dearest Angelina.
Ahhhhh, Angelina... I thought.
Last I heard, Angelina had run off with that trashy tomcat Freddy the Ratcatcher... Suddenly, I remembered Tigertoots—he was still waiting for an answer.
I faked a hairball and cleaned my face with my paws a bit to straighten out my whiskers. After a few swipes, I felt sure that any emotion that may have crept into my typical reptilian-cool gaze was suitably erased. I thought for a few moments. “Well,” I finally replied. “I did used to write a little.”
See, that Tigertoots is a real softie. He feels kinda bad for Shawn. She comes over, and spends inordinate amounts of time cooing and smooching and snapping her fingers and doing all kinds of other ridiculous stuff to try and make friends with us. I guess she thinks she speaks Cat, but she doesn’t. Tigertoots and I can’t understand a word she says. Tigertoots always says, “Poor thing…I think she thinks we understand her. I think she thinks we like her…” Me, I just think she’s an idiot. Extra stinky, too.
Anyway, Tigertoots heard that Shawn felt bad for taking too long to send out the Wireless Space Newspaper, and asked if I could help her out. Me, I couldn’t give two tuna tins about Shawn, but I admit, I kinda got a soft spot for Tigertoots. Me and him go way back, see, so, anyways. That’s why I’m here. Shawn couldn’t get it together, and none of you other stinky feet-walkers were going to do anything. So here’s my version of your last meeting for the Space Newspaper.
Rumplestiltz-style. Meee-YOW, baby!
Thai food. AKA fishy noodle-stuff with sauce. Usually Tigertoots and I like it, but on that fateful evening, two EXTRA feet-walkers showed up, Olivier and Theresa, and aside from also having stinky feet, one of them didn’t eat meat. These stinky feet walkers think they are SO smart, but they think that fish are meat! Can you believe it? “
Vegetarian” they call it. “
Heart-healthy and ethical,” they say. “
You can eat full, rich, complete meals without meat.” I can barely keep my claws in. Even at IKEA they agree:
Barfota, indeed.
First order of business seems to have been admiring Joyce’s new haircut. Both Tigertoots and I approve.
And then, Rick spilled rice all over the kitchen. So we have clumsy AND stinky. I couldn’t believe my luck.
I guess then it was time to pretend that nothing at all had happened, and that rice wasn’t actually still strewn all over the floor and getting ground into every crack and crevice of the house. Hooray for you.
Then they picked up some more rice.
After that, some folks spent time admiring these stinky foot covers. Besides having stinky feet, you people commune over them.
Christ on a crutch, Helen – What is this world coming to?
I’m not sure what happened next, to be honest. Between all the laughing and good time-having and wine-drinking, I gave up and retreated to the office to plan my revenge. All I know is that when I left, the kitchen looked like this:
And somehow a table full of food came out of it afterwards. Here’s how they told me it went. First, they boiled some water.
Next, they chopped up some colorful stuff.
Afterwards, they made a salad so beautiful that even Tigertoots and I would eat it. Then, they took a break, I guess from the hard work of making your feet stink.
Things were really hopping in there. We heard William tell how Marie twisted his arm to make him buy
his expensive rice cooker. At least
these two Extra Feet probably hadn’t heard the story before.
The kitchen stayed busy for HOURS. Did you note the time on the wall clock? They just wouldn’t go home, geez.
Frank made a delicious appetizer with some butter lettuce (meh) and some chopped, shrimpie business (yum). And then someone said that the aforementioned gorgeous salad should have had fish sauce. But since SOME people wouldn’t eat meat (see? We’ve gone from refusing MEAT to refusing not even fish – but fish SAUCE!!!), they used soy sauce instead. Harrumph.
I heard from even the meat-eaters of the group that the fried tofu was a total hit: deep fried in onion-infused oil, leftover from the fried shallots they crisped up for the pad thai topping. Someone even said it was the best part of the pad thai.
I think this is a picture of the sauce for the beef curry, although I gotta tell you, it looks like the corners of my litterbox after bad night of catnip overindulgence.
Blah blah, some artsy-fartsy picture of Joyce taking a picture of Meg taking picture of a bottle in the background. Or something. They drank lots of wine that night. At least it made their smelly feet less noticeable.
All mouths were agape as it was disclosed that William had never had Nutella before. Like, ever.
Tigertoots told me he didn’t believe it, that even HE had tried Nutella. Plus, we know William had worked with some hoity-toity French dude with a funny name for YEARS, and even cats know that all French people eat Nutella for breakfast. Then, Tigertoots nudged me and we caught all these guys barely disguising their mirth. I’m pretty sure Tigertoots is on to something.
Anyways, all you guys made entirely too much food. You tried to adjust portion size on the recipes to feed lots of people, HOWEVER…Curried beef, chicken, pad thai, fancy salad (
sans FISH SAUCE), lettuce leaf thingie, leftovers soup, sorbet—Tigertoots and I watched in amazement as people kept shoveling it in.
Some tidbits we heard for the next time you prepare all this stuff:
Pad Thai Mountain turned to pad thai mush – even though you wanted to be sure to have enough to go around, it might be better to prepare two batches instead of one huge double batch. The sheer weight of the noodles crushing themselves in the wok broke everything up when you tried to mix it.
It tasted good (I won’t tell you how I know) enough, but wasn’t gonna win any beauty contests. Now, my Angelina, on the other hand...
Regarding the chicken. It was battered with flour and cornstarch. The chicken was cut into small enough pieces that it cooked through just as the batter turned the perfect shade of crispy. Nevertheless, the chicken had been previously marinated (VERY simple marinade, and multi-purpose besides being tasty!) and was delicious in its own right (I won’t tell you how I know that, either). The batter was unnecessary and sort of blanded out the chicken flavor. Next time, either leave out the batter, or add WAY more spice to it.
Chicken note #2: Your half-basil, half-spinach, coconut curry sauce with green curry paste? Delicious. BUT, after pouring it over the crispy battered chicken, all the batter turned soggy! Terrible Leftovers Situation, kids - Boo!
UPDATE 20 May
I forgot the recipes. I had to wait until Shawn went to work so I could hack into her email to retrieve them. Here you go:
In summary, in the sage words of Meg, “We never make Thai at home because it looks so hard, even though we love it – and it IS hard. It takes long time to make, and was harder to do than we expected.”
Also, MANY special kudos to Meg for taking photo duty and inspiring this entry. Thanks, Meg!
So there you have it. You’re welcome. I’m going back to bed.
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