If Some is Good, then More Must be Better

Long ago, while experimenting with spaghetti sauces, I learned that some oregano really is necessary to make the sauce taste the way you want. Oregano makes a spaghetti sauce great! That day, after adding the oregano and tasting the wonderful difference, I had an idea.

If some oregano makes this sauce taste good, then a lot of oregano would probably make this sauce taste great! What a great idea!

I stirred in a tablespoon of oregano, tasted, and learned my lesson that day. I also learned that a ruined sauce really can't be saved with any amount of salt, sugar, or vinegar, even if you serve lots of wine.

Although I have learned about sauce and spices, I don't think I'll ever get past the "if some is good, then more must be better" idea.

After all, there are many things for which the law holds. $10 is good. $100 is better! One kitten is good. Two kittens are... well, there are No Bad Kittens, so two kittens are Two Good Kittens!

Today the two good kittens demonstrated one of the times when more is not better.

Last night, I took a book and a glass of wine to bed (last night's spaghetti sauce was just fine, thank-you). I fell asleep reading, and awoke in the night to kittens rough-housing all over me. I put the book up and caught the glass of wine before it spilled -- I'd hardly touched it.

I awoke in the morning and saw that I had must have had a teensy, little bit too much too drink after all, because I had thrown up a teensy, tiny little throw up way down at the foot of the bed, right on the bed spread. Or maybe one of the kittens had thrown up. Or peed. Something.

Not wanting to wash the entire bed spread just for a little round spot, I thought I would try a little spray of Folex Brand Instant Carpet Spot Remover on the spot, blot it up, and see if that took care of things. It didn't immediately, but it didn't make things worse, so I sprayed on a little more, put some paper towel over the spot, then went to work.

When I came home, I discovered that if maybe a little bit of Spot Remover on the spot gets the spot up a little, then if kittens dump the entire spray bottle on the bed, well, a lot of Folex Brand Instant Carpet Spot Remover left to its own enzyme-actioning devices all day long, will change the color of a really big area on your bed spread.

My bed spread.

Soon to be a giant cat bed.

So, all in the name of science, my kittens determined that if a few squirts of carpet spot remover works a little, it doesn't mean that a lot of it will work better.

Pork Shoulder at Safeway is $0.99 per pound

At Safeway right now, you can get pork shoulder (pork shank? pork steak?) for $0.99 per pound.  I picked up 6 pounds of pork shoulder for less than $6.   I took it home and only half of it will fit into my crock pot, and that's after attacking it with a cleaver.   The kittens were suitably impressed by all the excitement of dismembering a dead pig and cramming it into a crock pot.   

Later I discovered why this cut of meat is so cheap.   It comes with bones, great heavy bones that you pay for but cannot eat no matter how long you run the crock pot.   I guess that's why this cut of meat is so cheap, because only half of it is edible.   The edible half includes the generous inch of pork fat floating on top of the crock pot.   If you are not on a pork fat diet, then you have to discount everything slimy and gross, and you're down to just a little bit of meat bobbing around with the potatoes and carrots.  

So once I pulled out the bones and skimmed and re-skimmed and re-contra-skimmed off all the fat, I had a big plate of something that I would not, could not eat ("I do not like fat bones of ham, I do not like them Sam-I-am").   

But then I thought of two fuzzy souls living here who probably would enjoy congealed pork fat, reconstituted right back onto the bone -- just like their mother used to do for them out on the Serengeti.   I put it on the floor on a plate, the bones as big as kittens, fat globules oozing slowly as only fat globules can.   The kittens sniffed dubiously at the mess and looked up at me.   Meow?   I sighed and rolled my eyes, "Okay, kittens, this is a gazelle I hit with the car on the way home from Safeway.   Each of you has a drumstick."    They roared their approval and leapt upon the carcass.   

Is it bad to tell kittens that they are eating fresh gazelle, when it is really just 99 cent pork shank from Safeway?  

Is it bad to make up a story like that and put it on the Internet?

Is it bad to feed kittens pork fat?  Lots and lots of pork fat?

Did I remember to wash my hands after handling the raw pork?   Uh... does wiping my hands on kittens count? 

No Bad Kittens

I don't know where it was said first, but it is certainly true around here.

There are no bad kittens, just good kittens who do bad things.