Dog Valentine

When you are a dog, your main concern is love. The things you need to know are: who will give you love and when it will happen. In fact, you spend most of your days thinking about love and how to get the proper amount, the amount that will sufficiently fill up your tumbling dog-heart and your sweet dog bones. It's remarkably exhausting, to say the least. The idiom "working like a dog" came about for good reason, you know.

In an effort to accumulate his desired amount of valentine love yesterday, Murray set forth with a baking project. His dream, he told me, was to make treats for his friends at the dog park: Sidney, Nico, Kayla, Dixie, Luta, Henry, Casey, Rocky, Hunter, Oscar, Pepper, Duke, Sophie, the other Sophie, Yoshi, Bowie, Chubbs, Lulu, Sierra, Brownie, Alfie, Molly, Snickers, Ava, Mango, Doc, Apollo, Golddust, Marvin, Zinc, Emma, and, "you know, everyone else." He looked away for a moment, thinking some more about valentines. "Plus Buttercup and Charlie." I agreed. Something had to be done. 

We busied ourselves in the kitchen, choosing a recipe from The Doggy Bone Cookbook (thanks, Mom!), selecting the proper size heart-shaped cookie cutters, and creating the dog dough, which made some of us drool just to sniff the peanut butter as it was mixed in.  Forty minutes and five dozen hearts later, we were ready for assembly. Everyone would get their own bag of treats, Murray insisted, and they needed to have valentine stickers on them. Or they just wouldn't be right.

Ziploc bags are difficult when you don't have thumbs, but easier when your mother does. We taste-tested, just to make sure they were edible (they were), packed up the treats in bags, and prepared ourselves for our adventure. "Ugghhh, if I only had a backpack to put these valentines in!" Murray grumbled, impersonating Eeyore so well that it was almost eerie. "A backpack would be nice, I agreed, and I know it's frustrating to not have something when you feel like you need it, but this nice pink human bag will work just as well," I offered. He perked up, then, when he realized we were actually going outside, where zillions of scents were waiting for his very nose. And then we were off!

Murray followed me as I delivered the valentines to the humans, and he sat patiently in the snow with each delivery, hoping to receive one of his own valentines. Luckily, he was sweet about his friends getting the treats, and, luckily, he is lately becoming quite easily distracted by his new orange toy as it's cast through the air. (Fetching? Not really. Watching it be thrown, lumbering over to it, gathering it in his mouth, shaking his head about, then dropping it and moving on to something more interesting, yes.)

And that was Valentines Day. I tried not to mope over my past six weeks of love lost (oh, sheesh! Andy and I are over, by the way. More about this later, when my heart is back in place), and found it all to be quite cured by grits & kale tacos, margaritas, and a few wild laughs with some girlfriends at a new taco and whiskey bar that just opened down the street. No cupid, exactly, and no candy. No love interests, and no flowers. But we had something much better. We had the furriest, peanut-butteriest, wildest romp in the snow. We had friends with tails. And, of course, we had each other. 

Here's to love!

Pea-mutt Butter Dog Treats

from The Doggy Bone Cookbook

Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together 1/4 C peanut butter, 1 T vegetable oil,  and 1 C water. Add in 2 1/4 C whole wheat flour and 1 C oatmeal. Mix well. Roll dough to 1/4" thickness and cut with cookie cutters. Place on parchment-lined cookie sheets (very close together, if you'd like!) and bake for 35 minutes. Cool and store in an airtight container (or inside a dog's stomach).

Kitchen Dog

He's the kitchen rug. He's always underfoot. He's a catch-all, he's gigantic, and he's exactly where my feet need to be. I have no complaints.

If I am cooking, which is much of the time, Murray is in the kitchen, too. He secures a convenient spot in the high-traffic zone between the sink and the stove, and he becomes an immense, furry obstacle. Most of the time, I don't mind, though. You see, I've spent my whole life wishing for a kitchen dog. Books and television and design magazines have always glamorized kitchen dogs, and I've just known that it was the one kitchen tool I've been missing all these years. And now I have him. I have the very best, and least useful, kitchen tool I've ever invested in.

He catches spills quite well, this dog of mine. He lays in the corner of the kitchen next to my feet and underneath the cutting board. Unflinching, he rests calmly while receiving accidentally-dropped bits of spinach, garlic, onions, coffee beans, broccoli, sprouts, carrots, jicama, milk, peppers, lime juice, corn, rice, cheese, nuts, and ham. Oh, and there's the time that Jimmy spilled coffee on him. And the time I spilled iced tea on him. Murray glanced up, and went back to sleep. His coat is insanely thick, you see, and he is undeniably tolerant. You could likely drop an entire set of encyclopedias on him and he'd really only look up slightly and lick your leg to say hello and confirm that he loves you. 

If Murray was the kind of dog who ate everything he found, or waited for scraps to fall, or wiggled desperately to remove cooking bits from his fur so that he could gobble them up, I'd be panicky and concerned. But we're lucky. He doesn't want to eat all the things that poison a dog: onions, garlic, chocolate, coffee. Fortunately, he really only likes a few foods, and he has extremely good manners in the kitchen.

When we're in the kitchen, and Murray is in the way and covered with vegetable scraps, and Andy is jumping around and playing us made-up songs on his ukulele, and the pots are boiling over, and I'm trying to cook and dance and maniacally pull everything together for dinner, that's when I am at my happiest. That's when I am absolutely, positively sure that I am completely alive. Everything is fast and loud and close, and, somehow, for a historically quiet, slow space-loving cook such as myself, this has become my safest, most glorious place. 

This is for Dawn, who reminded me that a jar full of moldy applesauce is not an appropriate greeting for all of my lovely readers to have to return to over and over for two months. Thank you for your patience, all of you.

But It's Too COLD To Eat

I'm So Proud

First of all, Murray has started showing an interest in reading, which we are very excited about. He seems particularly enthusiastic about books that help him learn how to not cook, but I suppose he takes after his father in that way, so that makes it cute, rather than disappointing. Too many cooks do spoil the broth, after all. And Murray just isn't so good with a knife or a whisk (but please don't tell him I told you that).

Also, remember how he used to not like food? Well, we've had a delightful 180 degree shift, and now Murray has graduated from no-food-ever-because-I-hate-food to yes-I-will-eat-anything-and-beg-endlessly-for-it to I-will-lay-down-under-the-table-while-you're-eating-and-look-obscenely-cute. It's a miracle. And it's not ever been two months! We are so proud. I mean, goodness, I have always dreamed of having a dog who would lay down under my tables. So that's Murray. Keeper of table-forts, patient-waiter, listener of fork and plate and glass clanging, dinner time foot warmer, and master of all cute things. He has even taken to laying down under tables when no one is even eating at the table. And Auntie Colleen came over today and he rested his wet nose on her foot while we ate pretzels at the table. He's so good, this dog. Patience-requiring for everyone involved, yes. Trying, language-less, to help us understand his issues and his sordid past, yes. A little confused about how to gather and nurture his flock without being a total pain in the ass, yes. But a really, really, really good dog.

The most important thing to know about Murray is that he really likes cream cheese the best. And pig ears. And string cheese, and lamb snacks, and peanut butter, of course. And do not even try to give him a vegetable. Ever. (Although I am determined to make this shift. This dog WILL eat vegetables one day. And he will like it.) Sometimes I like to add vegetable pieces to his food bowl, which results in him extracting the vegetable bits, setting them down on the rug next to his bowl, licking them completely clean, and then pushing him aside with his nose into a pile. I can't be too mad, though. One, it's actually sort of cute. Two, remember my onion issue? This pickiness seems to run in the family, right? Ah, now this is something I can understand. This is my kind of dog-language. This, you see, is my kind of dog.

This Is My (Cooking) Life Now

I haven't cooked or slept in a week, but it's totally worth it.

Welcome, Murray!

This is our new dog-in-a-cone, Murray! He is awesome and beautiful and really nice. 

He does not, however, like to eat and he is not motivated by treats. 

Also, when I cook, he looks at me like, SERIOUSLY? This is what's happening right now?

To this, I say, Who IS this guy, anyway?! 

He'll need some training in the food department. Major training.

Stay tuned, friends!