The Queen of Beef Stew

Again this morning I found myself loading up the big crock pot with five pounds of chunked beef and two pounds of sweet potatoes, Cleo twining herself around my legs while Rosie sat politely but expectantly on the bookshelf by the kitchen window, watching, watching.

Before I started making their food, they thought of my cooking as little more than tantalizing scents, heavy with spices and garlic, and they stood in the doorway or slept on the bookcase, present but not particularly attentive. They understood the difference between PeopleFood and CatFood. More importantly, they had manners and understood that while they could have all the latter they wanted, the former was completely off limits. No begging allowed.

Now that I am Queen of Beef Stew and CatFood comes from the very same stove and fridge as PeopleFood, the line between the two has blurred and my every entrance into the kitchen is an Event. We still have the “no begging” conversation, and Cleo, bless her heart, tries to remember. I can see her little cat brain trying to restrain the furry gray rest of her. She looks up at me, worshipping, and I swear I can hear her thinking, I know you don’t want to be bothered right now but oh gaud that smells so good I love beef you know I wouldn’t bother you except it's been only an hour or two since breakfast and I’m really really starving. Please?

To which, like any goddess, I boot her gently away from my feet and carry on with my chores.

Our friends are often stunned and curious when they learn that I cook for the cats. Understand, please, this was a last ditch effort to heal our beloved Cleo. Rosie has demonstrated quite convincingly that she could live on anything: chicken kibble, fish kibble, dust bunnies, rubber bands. It’s all the same in that vacuum-sealed space that passes for her brain.

But Cleo has always been, to put it mildly, sensitive. She’s terrified of children, although thunderstorms don’t faze her. She’s very gentle and quiet unless badly spooked, whereupon she can turn in a nanosecond into a screeching, lashing, scratching bundle of terror. And then, almost without fail, she pees all over herself. She has to be sedated to visit the vet, and still complains endlessly and looks like some drugged-out refugee from a specially designed veterinary concentration camp.

And, lastly, give her food that doesn’t agree with her and she will quite literally very nearly puke herself to death. We have vet bills to prove it.

The list of foods that don’t agree with her is long: chicken, rice, corn, beef liver, spider plants.

Now, it’s easy enough to find pre-made food without chlorophytum comosum, but chicken, rice and corn are another matter entirely.

A year ago, Cleo had been getting progressively sicker, throwing up so violently and spontaneously that she was helpless to even move once the fits came over her. She threw up on the bed, couches, anything. She threw up every bit of food in her belly and when her stomach was empty she threw up blood. Over and over. We barred her from our bedroom when we were gone and kept the couches covered at all times, watched TV or slept with one ear half-cocked for the awful sound of her retching. We saw the vet and asked him about it, half sick ourselves with the fear that it was cancer or a tumor and we would have to put our cherished little cat down. Instead he just shook his head and said, “Does she lick her sides and tail like she’s itching or has gas?”

“Well yes,” we replied, “but she’s done that all her life.”

He nodded. “Food allergies. They get worse as cats age. Change her diet.”

Obediently, we started reading labels even more carefully on bags of cat food (we’d already been paying good money for the best, healthiest food we could find). Everything had something we didn’t want her to eat. So I went to the library and started researching.

And so began my reign as Queen of Beef Stew, Duchess of Salmon Casserole, Grand Lady of the Lamb Indulgence.

Last night as I dished out their food and noted that there was only one meal’s worth left, I told Gabi that I was getting tired of making all their food. Perhaps it was time to look for a pre-made food, one that was chicken and grain free and also free of artificial colors, flavors and fillers. In other words, something made with just as much care and consideration as I put into their every meal.

But today, after our little love-fest this morning, it doesn’t feel so much like a chore. We will need to find a pre-made food for them, if only to augment their stews during the two-week vacation we’re planning for this summer. But for now, the crock pot is full, the cats are sleeping contentedly, and a fine drizzle is falling on the growing plants in the garden. This is what I do, this is my life as lived, and it’s all very good.