St. Louis Food Blog

​RFT staff writer Aimee Levitt and her cat, Bess, continue their culinary adventure.

Like every other food blogger in St. Louis and probably the country, I went to see Julie & Julia over the weekend. (It was mandatory. There was a memo and everything.) I enjoyed it. A cat played a minor but almost heroic role. And it was so goddamned inspiring that upon returning home, I went online to see if Julia Child had ever bothered to concoct any cat food recipes. Alas, she never did, the selfish bitch. All she cared about was feeding people. I did, however, stumble across a very informative video clip.

Stephen Colbert has an assistant, so he stumbles across things in a much more timely manner than I do. Last spring, they discovered a study from the American Association of Wine Economists (yes! a real organization!; no! they do not appear to be taking job applicants) that revealed that 83 percent of those surveyed did could not tell pâté from dog food. (There were only eighteen people in the study, but hey, science!)

Stephen was distressed. How could our nation have fallen so far? When he gives his assistant one hundred bucks to get him pâté, she always returns with "the fanciest of feasts." He eats it from an elegant dish with a silver spoon, but the can it comes from is hauntingly familiar.

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Since July, 2008, RFT staff writer Aimee Levitt and her cat, Bess, have been embarked on a culinary adventure.

While Gut Check is on vacation this week, check out some of Aimee's (and Bess') best work:

Sardine Heaven (July 28, 2008):

My cat Bess is a magnificent animal. Others may not agree, but they are irrevocably prejudiced against cats. I will grant that her wit and intelligence and sweetness of disposition appear only sporadically, most often when she and I are alone, but, when she feels like turning on the charm, her furry little face and big green eyes can melt the hardest of hearts. But my Bess has a strength of character that most of us can only dream of and scorns most social graces, most notably pretending to be fond of people she hates, like the vet.

Bess may be uncompromising in social situations, but where food is concerned, she is fairly easygoing. For most of the nine years we have lived together she has dined on Purina One Cat Chow (Salmon and Tuna Flavor, when we can get it, or Turkey) with nary a complaint. We adopted the Purina when she was a kitten on the advice of her nemesis, the vet, and she has enjoyed good health ever since, plus a glossy coat and a little belly that jogs endearingly from side to side on the rare occasions when she runs.

Lately, though, Bess has seemed discontented with her kibbles.

Thanksgiving Feast (November 25, 2008):

Not that I know how to cook a fish head. I decided to start by defrosting it. I put it in a colander and ran cold water over it, which is how you defrost shrimp (at least according to the instructions from Trader Joe's). As I added the rest of the ingredients to the blender, its dead eyes stared up at me fishily. I tried to remove one, the way I removed the squid eye back in seventh grade dissection, but back then I had the right tools. This time, all I had was a steak knife. Something ominous and dark squirted into the air, but the fish eye did not move. Perhaps it was best just to let it be.

Country Captain (January 26, 2009):

Now I have a vision of sharing elaborate dinners with Bess at the kitchen table, me in a chair, her on the tabletop. Together will will eat our food and have sophisticated and lively conversations about literature and the arts and the major issues of the day. (We shall forget for a moment that Bess preferred to sleep through President Obama's inauguration and has not seen any of this year's Oscar nominees. Then again, perhaps for Bess, the inauguration meant that there would no longer be a cat in the White House and was, therefore, a source of anxiety.)

Or maybe we will enjoy a silent but companionable meal, bonding in some elemental way over the meat and rice and spices

Want to read more about Aimme and Bess' adventures together? Visit the complete archive.

RFT staff writer Aimee Levitt and her cat, Bess, continue their culinary adventure.

One of the hazards of my job is forced immersion -- some might say obsession -- in a particular subject for months at time. Pick-up artists, education, death, comic books, vampires...the books and articles pile up. (Sometimes I wonder if Homeland Security has a file based on my borrowings from the University City Public Library and, if so, what conclusions they have drawn about me.)

Bess is usually the primary beneficiary of my newfound knowledge. She listens patiently as I ramble on, sometimes reads over my shoulder, sometimes naps, on one occasion tried to eat the results of my labors (the discards, actually, of the balloon animal phase), but never have I forced her to participate in my temporary idiocy.

Until now.

RFT staff writer Aimee Levitt and her cat, Bess, continue their culinary adventure.

Today is Bess' birthday. She is ten. That's a pretty long time to have been around. The day I turned ten (which was longer ago than I care to reveal here), I received a red ten-speed bike from my grandma, got mugged for some of my leftover birthday cupcakes in the stairwell at school and felt as though I had passed into some wondrous new metaphysical realm: double digits.

I'm not actually sure if today is the actual anniversary of Bess' birth. The auspicious September day we met and fell in love at first sight, the volunteer at the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society informed me that she was four months old, so I just counted back to May.

The following summer, hiding out in a local bookstore to avoid the heat, I found myself reading a book on cat astrology (I had no air-conditioning, which makes a woman kind of desperate, all right?) which revealed that though the birthday I had given Bess made her a Gemini, her personality was really more like that of a Taurus: not fickle and indecisive, but calm and unflappable and very, very fond of sleeping. (Though she does rouse herself to kill the occasional roach every now and then, for which I praise her lavishly.)

Moreover, Taurus cats and Virgo humans are said to make quite a harmonious pair. Gemini cats and Virgo humans do not.

But by then Bess had already had a birthday, and I had made a very big deal about it, and since Taurus cats are bound by routine, it seemed silly to introduce such a big change.

RFT staff writer Aimee Levitt and her cat, Bess, continue their culinary adventure.

Bess just hissed.

This is a rare occurrence these days. In our old apartment, she hissed a lot, but that was because one of our cat-roommates, Henry, was an asshole. He liked to eat her food and lie on her favorite spot on our bed. It wasn't like he was deprived. He had his own gourmet food and soft kitty-bed. He just liked to be annoying. Which is why he was an asshole.

Tonight she just hissed at a young man standing beneath her favorite window talking loudly on his cell phone. This is also assholish behavior.

It's true, she could have jumped down and gone to another window, or to lie on the couch, or made a little nest for herself on the bed. But it's the principle of the thing. She wanted to sit in this particular window, which is up high and makes her feel tall and even more goddess-like than usual. And this asshole was spoiling it.

She was probably also irritable. These things seem more egregious when you're irritable. And it was all my fault.

RFT staff writer Aimee Levitt and her cat, Bess, continue their culinary adventure.

A colleague alerted me to an article in yesterday's New York Times about how the Jewish American Princesses (and Princes) of pets are enjoying premium canned food that has been certified as kosher for Passover.

Some lucky dogs also get to go to their own Passover seder, led by an actual rabbi, and play with special holiday-themed "Chewish toys." (Full disclosure: I bought a Chewish toy once for my mother to display on our seder table. It was a frog. We named it Pinchas. One seder guest declared it the cutest plague ever.)

The article, however, did not mention cats at all. With good reason, I guess. The holiday of Passover must be a frought occasion for cats who live in Jewish homes. They, after all, were worshipped as gods by the Egyptians. Why the hell would they have wanted to participate in any Exodus?

Right?

I consulted Bess, my own little princess.

RFT staff writer Aimee Levitt and her cat, Bess, continue their culinary adventure.

Like many people who are obsessed with both food and news, I am a regular reader of the New York Times' Dining & Wine section. At first I was just a passive consumer of food lore, but gradually over the past year, I have begun attempting some of the recipes on my own.

The latest was Country Captain. I did not intend to share it with Bess. It just seemed like a good way to occupy a wintry Saturday night. It required the stove and oven to be on for several hours. My apartment was warm.

(The Times claimed it was "an elegant dinner of no great complication", but "complication" is a term upon which the Times and I frequently disagree. Or, rather, I disagree. I doubt they really care.)

RFT staff writer Aimee Levitt and her cat, Bess, continue their culinary adventure.

Were there cats on the Mayflower? There must have been, if only to chase mice, but I can't ever recall hearing about them, even back in elementary school when my teachers did their best to sweeten up the Thanksgiving holiday with stories and songs about small, furry animals. I can recall a particularly saccharine song about a little bunny we had to sing every November -- I can even recall most of the hand gestures -- but nothing about cats.

Which is a great pity. Not that Bess would ever sit still to listen to a story about a cat -- she wouldn't even hold still for the greatest cat poem of all time, "For My Cat Jeoffrey" by Christopher Smart. (Please, if you love your cat, go read it now. This blog post will still be here when you get back.)

But I want Bess to know that Thanksgiving includes her, too. Most of my immediate family has cat allergies, so she never gets to go home with me. Instead, it is her custom to spend Thanksgiving alone. Sometimes she gets a leftover piece of turkey the day after, which she rightly ignores. Everyone knows turkey is the least impressive part of Thanksgiving dinner.

This year, I vowed, would be different.

RFT staff writer Aimee Levitt and her cat, Bess, continue their culinary adventure.

In hard times, one must learn to make concessions. At least this is the message that has been pounded into our heads for the past two months. Seven years ago, it was patriotic to shop. Now it is patriotic to scrimp. On Election Night, Bess and I sat in front of the TV, watching returns and clipping coupons. And we felt good about it. (We found exactly three we might be able to use, but we would save a whole $1.50!)

In the days after the election, we patriotically emptied out our cupboards, trying to make use of everything we found there instead of going out to Schnucks. (And also, I was feeling really lazy.) Thus we came across a tin of sardines purchased at Trader Joe's back in the optimistic days of summer before the economy went into the tank and I still fancied I could prepare meals that would tempt Bess' discriminating palate.

I was, at the time, attempting to use up some of the frozen shrimp in the freezer, sauteed in garlic and olive oil and served over rice. It was a hardship meal, but one I was sure I would be strong enough to bear. But seeing the rice and sardines together gave me an idea.

What's Aimee's idea? Find out after the jump.