Stories

Radar, a statesman with a discerning palate, whose first known name was Scabby due to cigar burns sustained as a puppy on the rough and tumble streets of Brooklyn, made the transition back to puppyhood on February 7, 2009 at home in Venice, CA in the arms of his loving family.

Radar was found in 1993 just a few months old and in very bad shape in a garbage can near Brooklyn Heights by an employee of the Humane Society. He became the house dog of the Humane Society on East 59th street in Manhattan for over two years as he healed up, grew up and kept getting passed over. He happily ate the house dog food but somehow developed an innate curiosity of exotic cuisine. When he was discovered by producer Sam Sokolow in 1995, his luck and menu started changing.

It's been a long day. All you want to do is get home but traffic is terrible. Finally you're home, ready for dinner. You thought about stopping for take out or picking up something from the prepared food section at Whole Foods but you didn't want to be around people. What you needed was to take off your clothes, slip into your PJs, sit in front of the TV, and watch the Daily Show and then Colbert. Now all you have to do is deal with the fact that you're starving.

You open the refrigerator and stare at a chaos of jars, bottles, and plastic bags. The only thing that looks immediately edible is a week old bagel. You could slather on some butter and call it a night but that would be depressing. The magnetic sticker on the refrigerator has Domino's phone number. A large pizza with pepperoni is a phone call away.

And then you have an epiphany – untold generations of Italians are sending psychic waves through the ether – Eat Pasta.

There is much in this world that leads us to believe that as humans, we are superior to other life forms. We have opposable thumbs, and the kind of intellect and consciousness that allow us to build more than a hive or a dam and shape our future with intellect rather than instinct. We have religions that teach us that we are “stewards” of the earth, as if we had somehow been handed a title by an unseen force who we may actually have invented.

We do not, often, look at ants as they carry a fallen comrade across our bathroom floor and consider whether we would do the same. We worry about how they got into our house, and how best to kill them. No one is going to be bothered to carry every ant, spider and fly outside – they are, after all, encroaching in our homes with their dirty little feet. We particularly hate stinging creatures like bees, hornets, and wasps. We say things like “I see a purpose for bees, at least honey bees, but the other ones don’t do anything useful.”

Leftovers! Even our dog, Buzz, won’t eat anything stored overnight in the fridge. Usually, when we give him some yummy leftover steak, he goes to his dog dish, looks at it, makes a pass at sniffing its aroma, drops his head, and with a heavy audible sigh and plodding gait shuffles away yet once again betrayed by the owners he so dearly trusts. Once, in exasperation, I whined, “but Buzzy, these are Mario Batali leftovers!” He looked at me with a why-didn’t-you-say-that-in-the-first-place shrug, and returned to his dog dish to enjoy his prize. (True story)

There are leftovers and there are leftovers! A thought that made me reconsider of an old cookbook – MICHAEL FIELD’S CULINARY CLASSICS and IMPROVISATIONS: Creative Leftovers Made From Main Course Masterpieces.

When I have the time, I love trekking through the dust of old cookbooks. I have some books that go back to Depression cooking – with such titles as GAS Cookery Book and The Progressive Farmer’s Southern Cookbook. (One never knows when a tasty recipe for Raccoon will come in handy when guests arrive unexpectedly: "First you shoot a raccoon…")