A Spoonful of Offal Helps the Medicine Go Down

This is a picture of a dessert spoon and half a pet-antibiotic-tablet. When we got Kittykate to the vet on Friday afternoon, she weighed in at 8kg. Not only is this double the weight of the average adult cat but I had just boasted to the vet that I had been very careful with her food and I thought she had lost a bit of weight! She was up 0.2kg since her last visit in February. This meant that she had to be given DOG tablets!!! The vet said half a tablet, twice a day and don't worry it's really easy. She made me hold Kitty's front paws and then whipped back her head and in the wink of an eye had popped one of these monsters down her throat. Just keep her paws down and her head back, she said. Oh yes.

The next morning , I explained the routine to Robert. He elected to do the front-paw-holding I got the mega tablet ready. I got scratched, Kitty spat out the tablet and Robert said "It's not going to be easy is it?"

Oh yes it is!

Kitty is such a "little" glutton that she doesn't mind the little pink sprinkles on her chopped liver. Here she is wolfing it down and we are now half way through the course.

We had a lovely trip to Ballarat today, on the train. We visited the upstairs of the Fine Art Gallery, having done the downstairs previously (OK, so we love culture in small and memorable doses). The Gallery has a delightful cafe and Robert returns in the hopes that they will repeat a risotto favourite that he had the first time we went. It was a savoury one with mushrooms, pumpkin and chorizo. The next time, there were no risottos on the specials board so we both had lamb's fry, greens, potato rosti and onion gravy. It is always lovely to have someone else cook your offal so that it comes to the table finished. The lambs's liver was perfection. A slight crust on the outside and still just pink but not bloody inside.

It came to mind because that is what the cat is eating and loving...lamb's liver. This time we both had fresh salmon, broad beans, lemon, fennel and herb risotto and it was a delightful combination of flavours.

There was an offal dish on the menu but I'm not so brave with sweetbreads and brains, even though this is obviously a chef who is brave and clever with offal. The Cafe adjoins the Art Gallery but can also be accessed from Federation Square. It is called Cafe Companis and info about it can be found here.

I have an order for a tea-cozy from a friend who drinks tea from teapots with others who do the same. I use the daffodil stitch pattern because it can be so easily adjusted, height and width ways. The trouble is the order is for a tea-cozy which is not as big as that but not as small as this, in a sort of maroony red colour. The pattern looks best in 4ply but most 4ply in the shops is baby-wool-colours. Not "maroony-red". I might have to do some dyeing again.

Cheers to all Gillian