use real butter

The first-born of the litter was willful and a little aggressive. The second-born was less so and seemed better suited for a pet. Jeremy’s mom chose carefully, administering all of the puppy personality tests. She took the second-born home and in one week’s time had her potty-trained, started her socialization, and had gotten all of her required shots. Mom said this was an anniversary gift from her and Pop.

welcome home

I felt like my nerves would reduce me to a heap on the floor: the drive from Ithaca to Syracuse, the wait for her flight to land, watching everyone on the flight pick up their luggage and then finally seeing the oversized luggage doors open. Skis, some large boxes, and then a large blue kennel rolled out. It was all a flurry of activity. Jeremy calmly, yet quickly walked up to the kennel and took a quick peek through the holes. Blackness inside. We could barely see a thing. He picked up the kennel and we walked outside to a patch of green lawn.

first visit to the cornell plantations

My hands were shaking. I had wanted a dog for so long and here she was. We opened the door and waited. Jeremy and I strained to see until two big eyes began to materialize deep in the kennel, catching the light of the February winter skies. This chunky, fluffy black puppy ambled out clumsily onto the grass. She heard my squeal and bounded toward me, hopping onto my lap, licking my hands, turning in little circles over and over. Soft. She was sooooo soft and wiggly. Jeremy laughed and she stopped in her tracks, spun around and bounced over to him. Our puppy.

jeremy taking kaweah for a walk

“What do we name her?” we asked each other on the drive home. She was asleep in my arms and then at some point, stretched across the emergency brake to settle her chin on Jeremy’s forearm before falling back asleep. He looked down at her then at me with the “I’m hopelessly smitten!” look. Scout? Bonkers? After a few days, Bonkers seemed more appropriate. It still seems appropriate today, but we decided on Kaweah, after the Kaweah Ridge Range in the Sierra Nevada of California.

out in the snow

She was on track to be a good-sized Labrador Retriever growing 1-2 pounds a week, giant paws, a 90-pound field champion for a father. After her spaying, she just stopped growing – frozen at 6 months with giant paws that she never grew into. And because Kaweah is over the moon with excitement and energy when she meets ANYONE, people always asked if she was a puppy… even when she was ten years old.

along for the fall shoot – and happy, always happy

Kaweah has been a healthy pup for all of her thirteen years. She doesn’t care for being petted, although she loves nothing more than to cuddle up with you on the couch, bed, floor. She’s a cuddler. She LOVES the vet (any vet, but especially her current awesome vet). She thinks drive-thrus are the best thing ever, especially when the bank teller has dog treats. She’s a quiet dog although her bark sounds like it should be coming from a dog twice her size.

a fan of flannel quilts

This pup will scavenge for garbage the moment she is out the door, but will leave any food in the house alone unless you tell her she can have it – even when we are gone for the whole day. For over a decade, she thoroughly enjoyed hiking mountain trails and running leaps into icy cold alpine lakes. She really loves kitty cats, though they aren’t so keen on her. Kaweah is not an aggressive dog, she just wants to play, take naps, eat (anything), and be with others.

playing gently with a puppy

During the bad nights of my chemotherapy when I was sick in the bathroom, she’d come and quietly sit by me for hours, gently leaning against me. Whenever I coughed, she would rest her paw on me. She watched over me when I slept or put her chin on my lap and softly sighed when I cried. Woman’s best friend.

birthday plate

These days Kaweah can’t hike or walk more than four miles on a good day. Her back legs are arthritic, her trachea is slowly collapsing, and her kidneys are starting to decline. It’s old age. A couple of white whiskers have replaced the black ones and her chin is turning white. We don’t let her go up or down the stairs without an escort anymore. She’s still in pretty good shape for a senior citizen. What matters most is that she is happy and comfortable, which she seems to be.

waiting for her release word

Happy birthday, my sweet little ‘weah. May your day be filled with romps in the snow, a special birthday plate with APPLES and CARROTS, naps on soft and fluffy blankies, belly rubs, squeaky hedgehogs, and dreams of chasing bunnies and squirrels.

make a wish, kaweah!

happy birthday, silly pup

Recipe: taco seasoning

It’s Kaweah’s eleventh birthday today! In celebration, we here at use real butter are having a giveaway this week in honor of Kaweah. Hmmm… what should we give away?

a puppy?!?

I can’t give that puppy away – that was Kaweah almost 11 years ago (it was sunset, so she looks brown). We tossed around a ton of ideas, but finally settled on this puppy:

how about a $100 gift card to chefs?

I’m giving away a $100 CHEFS gift card this week. What better way to launch the giveaway than on our little random number generator’s birthday? To enter, follow these rules:

Leave ONE comment on this post telling me what you want to do with the $100 gift card (e.g. What are you going to get? Is it for you? Are you going to give the card to someone else?) Multiple comments will be deleted. Entries will be accepted until midnight, Friday December 18, 2009 (12:01 am will be Saturday the 19th). The winner will be selected at Crazy Random courtesy of Kaweah and the Astrophysicist and announced on Monday, December 21, 2009. I’m pleased to tell you that CHEFS ships internationally, so this giveaway is open to ANYONE. Woohoo!

For Kaweah’s birthday, we did an early celebration because we have too much going on today. I’m sure the majority of you will think us insane, but I thought a little bit of steak might be nice for Kaweah’s birthday dinner. Just a little. That’s not the insane part. The insane part was finding ourselves in front of the Whole Foods meat counter. Hmmm, why was the dry-aged rib-eye $19.99 a pound? I asked what the difference was between dry-aged and regular. Curiosity got the best of us, so I pointed to one steak and said, “How about that one?” I thought it was 1.5 inches thick… when the nice gentleman lifted the steak out of the tray, it was 2.5-inches thick and the bloody thing cost me $30!

more wondrous snow

she even got dressed up

We grilled the steak and set aside a few thin slices for the birthday pup. The problem with giving Kaweah any kind of beef is that she scarfs it down without chewing. And just in case you thought it was because the piece of meat was too small – she does the same thing with large pieces of meat too (I have experimented with this in the past).

the birthday plate

it was gone in seconds

Jeremy and I sat down to share the remainder of the steak. It was like butter! So tender and melt-in-your-mouth. Can you dry-age beef at home if you have a cellar or some such thing? I’m tempted to look into it just for kicks (and well – to save having to pay out the nose). I don’t know that I will regard steak the same way again.

When Kaweah cleared her plate like a good girl, we gathered her favorite toys together for birthday cupcake. But that beef was fatty enough as it was, she didn’t need frosting too. Jeremy graciously volunteered to polish off the cupcake while Kaweah enjoyed a healthy carrot. She’s a simple girl, you know.

when kaweah really wants something, she won’t look at it until she hears her release word

what’s that mr. bunny? oh no, i’m 11 years old, not 11 months!

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: spicy tuna stuffed squid tempura

**Note**: Daring Bakers, it came down to the wire and I chose sanity over the DBs yesterday. Forge ahead and hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had a great one. xoxo

I expect most everyone is in a complete state of food coma at this point. Am I right? We are actually quite happily not in food coma over here just because I’ve sort of had it with food lately (the making, the eating, the documenting). December is less than a week away and that entire month is about FOOD, so we gave ourselves a little break. Plus there was work to be done this morning. We had to pick a winner for the scarf giveaway.

your mission, should you choose to accept it…

Kaweah loves to participate in picking random numbers as long as the motivator is food. Try throwing a ball and she’ll run after the ball, then run right past it, then keep on running, until you wave a dog biscuit in the air and holler, “TREAT!” So the set up was to place ten pieces of paper numbered zero through nine around our great room with a bit of carrot on it. Then we let Kaweah into the room and recorded the first number she ate. Jeremy had to police her because the last time we tried this, Kaweah ate one number and then mowed through four more before we could stop her. Then we repeated this twice more. I’m sure some of you are thinking if she hits the first number, she’ll just return to the same place each time. Nope. Our good pup isn’t that bright. Seriously. She is totally in the moment.

jeremy chases after kaweah to make sure she doesn’t eat the rest of the numbers

our crazy random number generator gave us 983

We took 983 mod 221 (I know a few people said they weren’t entering, but anyone leaving a comment is considered entered because it’s too much work for me to remove them) and got #99. Congratulations to Dani of Dani Dishes! You win the scarf and you get to pick the colorway of your choice! I’ll be sending an email shortly. Thank you to everyone who shared what Thanksgiving was about to you. Food was probably the biggest along with family, and some of you really tugged at my heartstrings especially remembering those who aren’t with us anymore. It was so nice of you to share with me.

Our Thanksgiving was very low key foodwise because we are both swamped with work. I kept our “meal” simple, but special. Mostly, we just wanted to have a quiet day including a nice walk before sunset. I’m thankful for the little things as much as the big things in life.

this snow will likely last through the spring

someone was particularly happy and well-behaved today

definitely thankful for these two

What we ate for our Thanksgiving meal (it’s too early to be called dinner, too late for lunch) is known as Tiger’s Eye at our favorite sushi restaurant in South Pasadena. It is spicy tuna stuffed calamari that is tempura fried, sliced, and served with ponzu sauce. I didn’t have ponzu sauce on hand, so I had to make my own. The recipe I use calls for bonito flakes. I never have bonito flakes on hand either (although you can buy them in Asian markets and I recommend this – or better yet, just buy ponzu sauce). However, I did have a giant piece of dried bonito.

it looks like driftwood

pouring lemon juice and rice wine vinegar into the soy sauce and bonito flakes

**Jump for more butter**