Cat Dreams–what do cats dream about?

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I know my cat dreams. It isn’t just that she’s a mammal, with a brain much like mine. It’s because sometimes, as she sleeps on my lap, her paws twitch and she mumbles that chirping, chattering sound she makes to birds on the other side of the window.

So she probably dreams about birds in the garden. What else do cats dream about? I imagine she dreams about other things that happen in her life. Maybe she chases lizards, or washes herself, or eats delicious wet food.

Does she dream about things that haven’t happened? The vacuum has never left the closet of its own accord and chased her around the house, but does she have nightmares about that happening? Or does imagining things that haven’t happened, even in dreams, require some quality that cats’ brains don’t possess? Maybe she has bad dreams of going to the vet, of being poked with small pointy sticks, but none in which inflated garbage bag creatures pounce on her in the kitchen.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

What is it like when she gets woken up mid-dream, perhaps by some over-affectionate human wanting to pat her? When I wake up abruptly from a dream, sometimes it’s hard to shake the feelings I had, especially if I was angry at someone, or very upset about something that happened in the dream. And I know that it was a dream, and know the difference between dreaming and reality. How do cats know the difference between a dream and reality? Or does it not matter–does whatever they felt in the dream get immediately replaced by their awareness of their waking surroundings, so that the dream fades from thought almost instantly?

What is it like when cats dream? I can only guess.

Till next post.

Fight With a Foxtail Fern

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When I decided to move the foxtail fern out of the house, on the grounds that it is apparently toxic to cats and sheds a lot of needles even if kept out of reach, I did not realize what a fight I would have to reclaim the pretty pot I had planted it in.

First I tried to wiggle it out of the pot dry. It resisted–strongly. So I thought perhaps watering it would help ease it out. That may have been a huge mistake. The plant continued to remain firmly fixed in the pot, despite my sticking wooden skewers along the edges and wiggling them in an attempt to loosen the roots. I pulled. Not the slightest movement.

I got my husband involved. He stuck a sharp trowel in, moving it around as I had done the skewers, trying not to scrape the glazed interior of the nice pot that I wanted to save. But the trowel wouldn’t go in very far, so finally he pulled out the weapon of last resort–a butcher knife with a slightly curved end–and proceeded to cut the plant out. (By this time I was mainly concerned with saving the pot, not the plant.)

Success! We reached in to find out how the plant had stuck itself so thoroughly to the pot, and found that the remaining roots came out easily. They weren’t attached at all–they were just well and truly packed in there. Watering the plant had, if anything, caused the water-storing tubers to expand and wedge the plant in even more tightly.

To understand, see the loosened mass of roots and tubers that I pulled out of the pot after the drastically root-trimmed plant had been put in a different (and slope-sided) pot.

Foxtail fern and its roots

It’s hard to imagine it fitting in there.

As a side note, I do generally prefer a bit of slope to the sides of a pot. I dislike pots where the rim comes inward at the top and makes it more difficult to tip out a pot-bound plant. But the terra-cotta pot in question had perfectly straight sides, so I wasn’t expecting a battle.

I shall now put the plant out on the porch, where the cats are not allowed. We’ll see whether it survives its drastic pruning, and if so, how it manages the rest of the winter. It’s February–there’s supposed to be some winter still to go, whatever the blooming daffodils think.

Till next post.

Gingerbread–the cake, not the cookie

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Gingerbread with whipped cream

I was recently reminded how tasty gingerbread can be. While looking at other people’s posts on cookie houses, I ran into a post by Come July about gingerbread–the cake, not the cookie–which showed a photo of one of MY COOKBOOKS. Well, not the very cookbook on my shelf, obviously, but the page looked just like mine, only with some water damage.

Better Homes and Gardens, c. 1981, printed 1987

That got me thinking about gingerbread. And whipped cream, because whipped cream is what really makes gingerbread good, in my opinion. My husband really liked a gingerbread with lemon sauce that he had at a restaurant, so adding some warmed lemon curd sounded like a good idea too.

The recipe I’ve used is actually from a different cookbook, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. It may or may not be the same recipe my mom used. I made a gingerbread last weekend (the version with extra spices), and it was good, but now I’m thinking about trying a different recipe, just to see how it compares.

The All-New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook, c. 1959, printed ?
Fannie Farmer, continued.

The other thing I realized is that while lemon curd is good with gingerbread, I actually like it better with just whipped cream. Some combinations are like that. Some people like apple pie with vanilla ice cream. I like both pie and ice cream, but I prefer to eat them separately. Same for apple pie and cheddar cheese, which some people like together. I don’t think the combination is as good as either of its components.

The serving suggestions in Fannie Farmer (seen above) just go to show the variety of ways in which people apparently enjoy their gingerbread. Applesauce sounds possibly familiar, but grated cheese folded into whipped cream??

I have no particular point to make in this post. I’m just enjoying the world of traditional desserts.

Till next post.

Gingerbread with whipped cream and lemon curd