Autumn, Strangolapreti and Nigel The Humming Cat

I love autumn. It's my favourite season. Spring's too wet, summer's too hot, winter's too cold. But the fall? Fall is exciting and blustery and bracing. Yes, white winter death is just around the corner but that just makes everything more vibrant. You appreciate the colours and smells and sounds that much more because you know it's all going to change drastically in a month or two.

Having burst forth in its fiery seasonal display, our Japanese maple is now shedding its leaves at an impressive rate. Jeff sweeps up the leaves almost daily but our front walk is crimson again by the next morning.

My herb garden is languishing. The basil is shrivelled from the cold. I'd take in the rosemary for the winter except that the neighbourhood squirrel killed it first, digging it up (maybe its pea-sized brain vaguely remembered burying a nut there in the spring) and heartlessly tossing it aside.

The sage seems hardier. I picked some for dinner the other night:



I felt like cooking something Italian, so chose an interesting-sounding recipe from my Basic Italian book. Strangolapreti literally means "Strangle The Priests" in Italian. The dish is actually ricotta dumplings with spinach, but it was the name that compelled me to try this recipe.

Jeff is very good about trying anything I cook; we're both fairly adventurous eaters. I've only had to throw dinner out once. Well, more than once if you count the number of times I burned dinner because I got too absorbed with work, but that was years ago. Now I use a kitchen timer with a loud and obnoxious ring to drag me out of my officecave.

Anyway, the dumplings were pretty messy and weird-looking before I cooked them:



In some parts of Italy, these are called malfatti, which means "badly made," and the cookbook warned that I shouldn't worry if they weren't shaped perfectly. I had never made dumplings before, so had to do several test dumplings (adding a bit more flour each time) before I found the right consistency; my dumplings kept falling apart as soon as I put them into the boiling water.



They were just as ugly when they came out of the pot, but they tasted great! I served them with a drizzle of sage butter (with the sage from our garden) and shaved pecorino (a hard Italian cheese made from sheep's milk). Jeff loved them.

Sold another painting yesterday. Here's one of the new mini-paintings that I've added to my Etsy store:



It's another tiny painting: acrylics on a 4" x 4" canvas board with a protective matte varnish. The cat's name is Nigel, by the way. You can re-name him if you'd like, but that's the name that jumped into my head as I was painting him. Wouldn't YOU love to have Nigel The Humming Cat on your fridge? Or washing machine? Or anything else where you can stick a fridge magnet?

In the past couple years I've realized that I like drawing cats. Ironic, really, because I'm allergic to them. But they still fascinate me with their complex personalities and neuroses...and especially their owners. :-)





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