Things were going just fine until around 3pm or so, when I found Tobey under the bed hiding. When I went to touch him, he screamed in agony. Knowing that this is probably a flare up of his FLUTD, I made a snap decision to rush him to the vet. When I got to the vet, the lady I deal with said I told her who I was, but after that I just stated talking so fast, she didn’t catch who I was bringing. I love this vet. I call to see if they can work me in and they just say come over. They make my emergencies, their emergencies.
I had already planned with the DH a simple dinner of a favorite fare. This is spaghetti with amogio sauce.
A dinner I’ve been eating my whole life and I mean my whole life. When other kids were eating baby food out of a jar, I was eating this very dinner, just blended up into mush in the blender.
The spaghetti is obviously self explanatory, but here is my amogio recipe. I use a food processor today, but back in the day I used a giant mortar (aluminum bowl) and pestle (wood beater that still to this day smells like garlic).
I put 5-6 cloves of garlic and give them a quick spin. Then I add 6 or so good meaty tomatoes – I like the Romas. Again you give those a spin. Not too much… you don’t want mush. Finally I add a little salt and pepper to taste, and several nice tablespoons (3-4) of olive oil. Give them a twirl in the processor and then fresh torn basil. We don’t add oregano to our recipe. My father always thought it made sauce taste bitter, so out went the oregano. I used to ask my father why we ate octopus instead of lasagna, you know, like you see in Italian restaurants. Well I guess when you live on an island in the Mediterranean, where it can get hot, it’s nice to eat simply. This recipe is also great on steak, fish, and chicken and will be the base of a chicken dinner I will do this weekend.
I basically stopped eating this chicken dinner as an adult because I ate it so much as a kid and let me just tell you now, not always with chicken, but with a hippty-hoppity fare that tastes like chicken to one very naive and unsuspecting kid. They laughed about it later. But, as time goes by we mellow, and I’ve been listening to a new book by one of my favorite authors – Adriana Trigiani’s. Her new favorite of mine is Very Valentine. I swear I keep laughing and thinking this has to be my family she’s describing.
p.s. - did you notice I was able to put in the book below? Pretty cool. I found a new plug-in, signed up for a free service on Amazon and then went uh-oh… I think I did this wrong – sent them an email to cancel, then said -oh this does work. Neat. Sent them another email saying please ignore below. Some web developer at Amazon is getting a hearty laugh out of this. Hopefully they won’t cancel me. 
Look Ma, I’m learning computers.
p.p.s. – I forgot to mention… Tobey is fine. He’s just got a bad infection. 21 days on very strong kitty antibiotics to sort it out.
edited to add: So the book thing is pulling random books from my tags sometmes, so I found another working plug in to put the actual book in I’m talking about.
[...] Madame Purl put an intriguing blog post on Simple Sicilian Fare | Madame PurlHere’s a quick excerptI used to ask my father why we ate octopus instead of lasagna, you know, like you see in Italian restaurants. Well I guess when you live on an island in the Mediterranean, where it can get hot, it’s nice to eat simply. … [...]
Oi, you start off with Tobey and then go all off on a food tangent. Of course I should have known he was fine if you were talking about food. Poor baby, hope he is feeling better quick. This does sound very like John’s dish but his has more stuff- tomatoes garlic parsley, oregano (but just a touch), crushed red pepper, cayenne, touch of good olive oil, salt and a wee splash of red wine vinegar.