Thursday, March 28, 2024
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From the Archives and Vintage Photos: Cookie, Stanley and Moses, 2011 and 1988

Cookie chooses her own ear of corn.
Cookie chooses her own ear of corn.

If there was any doubt that Cookie liked sweet corn, she proved it wrong every time I brought some into the house, whether it was from my garden or from the market.

July 9, 2011, I barely had time to remove the salad greens and peppers from the basket before Cookie was ready to choose her ear of corn and start pulling at the shucks.

Catch that expression. I’m not going to take that ear of corn from her, or try to remove her from the basket.

Really, I don’t pose her, there’s no way she’d put up with it. She decides to do these things all by herself, but she’s so darned cute I can’t help but photograph everything she does. And lest you think she might have just decided to get into the basket no matter what was in it, as cats are wont to do and she has done with other various containers that happen to be in the kitchen, here is a photo of what she was doing before she looked up at me, actually pulling at the shucks of her ear of corn as Mewsette observes.

Mewsette is learning an important lesson.
Mewsette is learning an important lesson.

These were the sorts of things that made Cookie unique among cats.

. . . . . . .

July In the Kitchen With Cookie

“We Have Sweet Corn!”

tortoiseshell cat eating sweet corn
It’s Sweet Corn Time!
tortoiseshell cat chewing on corncob
Cookie enjoys a corncob.

Cookie has always loved sweet corn, and when Sophie was still here the two of them would descend on the corn and pull the shucks off to chew like big blades of grass. If they had completely shucked the corn for me I would not have complained, but they pulled off enough to chew on, then they’d start on the kernels underneath. This is difficult for kitties to digest, so I diverted them from that and gave them my corn cobs after I’d eaten my fill of cooked corn—they enjoyed those just as much and it was more digestible!

. . . . . . .

Don’t forget, each month of In the Kitchen With Cookie comes with a seasonal recipe or suggestion of how to enjoy fresh home-cooked food—that’s what I was doing in the kitchen while Cookie was showing off. She always enjoyed being near me when I was enjoying what I was doing and I think that was what made Cookie so cute in the kitchen; when I was happy, she was happy, and it’s a lot of good memories.

I didn’t publish this calendar for 2015, but instead I’m working on making it into a cookbook for cat lovers. Hopefully I’ll have it out for 2016. Here is the recipe for July from the calendar, so please enjoy!

RECIPE: SWEET CORN

I have no recipe for sweet corn, only advice: find it as fresh as possible and keep the shucks tightly covering it until you are ready to eat it. Boil the water while you shuck only as much as you want to cook, boil for three to five minutes, remove immediately from water. I use only butter, no salt, but that’s up to you! When I could grow it in my yard I had the water boiling before I even went out to pick it, and sometimes didn’t boil it, only steamed it, and often didn’t dress it with butter, either, just ate it warm, mmm.

Someday I’ll publish this calendar again.

~~~

Vintage Photos and a Few Others: Top of the Stairs, 1998

Stanley and Moses in the sun at the top of the stairs.
Stanley and Moses in the sun at the top of the stairs.

Stanley and Moses enjoy the sunshine on a summer morning in 1998. The landing may look a little different from the way it looks now, but the only thing really changed is the addition of the wardrobe to replace the table, and the demise of my Norfolk Island Pine. Other than that, the mirror, the lace curtain, the art on the walls, it’s all been there to be a backdrop to my cats for many years.

Moses looks up at Stanley.
Moses looks up at Stanley.

Moses had somewhat undeveloped hind legs so she could never get up on a windowsill without many things to step up on, but Stanley loved the table and the windowsill. Moses learned to love and trust all the cats and me but always enjoyed Stanley’s company best after their early friendship. When the two would spend time together and he decided to be up on something, she would stay on the floor nearby, and they were still together.

Stanley looks down at me.
Stanley looks down at me.

It’s just the simple moments that you remember.

. . . . . . .

From the Archives: Mousewatch and Evening, 2005

Cookie and Kelly on "Mousewatch".
Cookie and Kelly on “Mousewatch”.

Above, it’s hard to tell that there are two feline shapes reclining, almost hidden, on the left side of the steps.The top one is Kelly, two steps down is Cookie. It’s too hot to sit in the sun by the basement door, so the girls are on the basement steps where even on the hottest day a breeze blew in the door and up the stairway, and they could watch the wildlife running past just outside the door. Most importantly, they were ready when a mouse might come running in, which one would regularly do. Cookie occasionally joined in this activity and the two were the best mouse catchers ever, but it was Kelly who I most remember on the steps on summer days. For nearly all the years I’ve worked at home ahe spent all the daylight hours of a summer day patiently lying on the step, paws curled under, watching out the door, now and then lying her head on her paws for a nap. Somewhere in my archives I’ll probably find a good photo of this, but this one, at least, was taken on this date.

This photo was taken on July 23, 2005, and I’d tagged the folder “mostly cats” though most of the photos were a little odd, like this. That was because they were memories I was trying to capture, but the conditions weren’t optimal for photography. No harm in trying. The photo below was in the same folder, and it’s Namir cooling himself on the concrete step as evening drew to a close. More memories.

Namir enjoys the cool concrete after a hot day.
Namir enjoys the cool concrete after a hot day.

Art and Gifts featuring cats you know! Visit Portraits of Animals

AfterDinnerNap-Etsy~~~

Feline Gift Items from Portraits of Animals!

How Do You Like Them Apples Gift Bag
How Do You Like Them Apples Gift Bag

Not sure if Cookie was espousing the apple-a-day ideal, but she sure seemed to be enjoying sitting in the sun.

Or perhaps she was worried about the apples. Cookie did things like that, sat near things that needed to be fixed or moved or where something was somehow amiss. A few weeks before this photo the sun didn’t come in the window at this angle so the apples were safely out of the sun—and kitties weren’t necessarily inspired to sit there in the shade. When the sun moved so did the kitties, but I’ll have to move the apples myself. Kitties don’t do that kind of work. Read more, and purchase.




Copyright

All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.


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Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

2 thoughts on “From the Archives and Vintage Photos: Cookie, Stanley and Moses, 2011 and 1988

    • Cookie–and others–pulled cobs I’d chewed out of the compost container!

      Reply

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