Or, at least, one of them is. We have two black & white cats. They’re sisters, or littermates, more correctly, I guess. They have names, Holly & Ivy, like the Rumer Godden story, but one is more black, and the other more white, so naturally, we call them the black one and the white one. (Mark likes to call the white one Blanche and the black one Sharpie – for the little dot on her face, but that’s just Mark.) Anyways, the black one is skinner and smarter. The white one is softer, fatter, and dumber. But she has a pretty pink nose.
The other day, I was charmed to discover that the black one knows the sound of the butter dish – she came running into the kitchen when I got it out, in hopes of a lick. Earlier today, she followed me into the basement – both cats usually do, because that’s where their food is – but instead of mooning around by her dish hoping for some kibble, when she saw I was washing the supper club tablecloths, she remembered that food bits often drop out when I’m doing that and came over to prospect.
I was washing the table linens post- the second of the small plates buffets. There was a nice crowd – Rachael’s betrothed, Iain, is visiting, and they essentially hosted. The little lime-coconut cakes were my favorite of the sweets. I made ginger syrup, and made a cocktail of ginger syrup, ice, champagne, and lemon wedge – like the best ginger ale you ever tasted. I think that ginger syrup is going to have come out again next week in the trifle.
I bought about 2 pounds of raspberries at the farmers’ market today, and turned them into raspberry sauce – or Edna Lewis sugared raspberries, from How to eat supper – because Scott Peacocock’s book’s not out yet. Even though it’s only July, and hot as hell, it was the first bit of putting food by for the winter. The sauce is raspberries mashed in a big bowl with sugar – kind of a lot, but you need it to preserve the raspberries: 2 cups per pound. I cut the sugar down just slightly, using a little more than three cups for my 2 pounds. The clean up took longer than the preparation.
