I’m married to a pacifist. An animal loving pacifist; an animal saving, animal loving, real blue pacifist! But he’s no PETA nut. He loves a good steak. When we take walks on the walking trail in our neighborhood, he counts the rabbits. Our best walk was a 26 bunny night. He gets a little irritated when we see a bunny up ahead, and further up is someone walking a big dog. He knows the dog will scare the rabbit away before we get there. I never know whether to count that rabbit or not. We saw it, didn’t we? I think it counts.
He’s always on the lookout for birds. His father was a serious birder and counted for the Audubon Society. When he passed away, we found his “life list” which contained over 500 varieties that he had seen. So over the years, LJ learned to recognize countless varieties of birds. Since we’ve been married, I’ve learned to recognize, oh, maybe 5. But he keeps pointing them out to me. I just know we’re going to run off the highway one day when he spies another hawk at the top of a telephone poll. “Look, look, it’s a Red Tail Hawk! Did you see it?” By the time he’s voiced the question we’re way past the hawk and I didn’t even see brown, let alone a red tail (which it really doesn’t have, I’m convinced).
One of the best things he does is save animals from each other and that bitch, Mother Nature. We have billions of earth worms in our neighborhood. I don’t know why, but sometimes when we go out for our walks, there will be dead earthworms all over the sidewalk. Well, occasionally there will be one desperate earthworm, barely squirming on the cement. You can almost hear him like The Fly in the movie, “help me, help me… .” Anyway, LJ will carefully scoop the little fellow up and toss him back into a yard, smugly satisfied that he’s just saved another creature from the bitch.
LJ and I have two cats, Scout and Zooey. Scout’s the pretty one. That’s from a line in the movie “Picnic” when the younger, tomboyish daughter played by Susan Strasberg was telling someone how Madge (played by the lusty Kim Novak) was the “pretty one” while she was stuck with the brains. Well, that’s how it is with Scouty. He’s our big, beautiful male kitty, who loves us and sticks to us like glue. He must be in your lap at all times. Zooey, on the other hand, is our rather pedestrian looking gray tabby female who is a mental giant. She tricks Scout into chasing her and then back tracks and leaves him standing in the middle of the room totally befuddled. And boy, can she beat him up. He stares at her and makes those guttural cat wails, and she just looks at him like he’s crap. Then when he least expects it, she pounces and he’s on his back. Then she’ll make up with him and groom him all over and soothe his hurt feelings. They’re a trip.
Scout & Zooey
The one thing that is totally unsafe in our house is a gecko. And the little tiny ones come in some way (we haven’t figured that out yet) and are gecko patties before they know what pounced. Scout and Zooey play with them until they don’t move any more and then leave them in the floor for me to find and throw away. Well, the other night, LJ saw a big gecko, probably 4 inches long, way at the top of the wall in our foyer. The ceilings are 18 feet in there, and this sucker was at the top. LJ grabbed a fishing pole and a couple of bath towels and rousted me from my “Archie’s chair” to go on a save the gecko mission. We wound up forcing the gecko off the wall (he fell actually), and LJ threw a towel over him. He escaped the first towel, but I was a hero with the second one and LJ was able to scoop the little bugger up and throw him back into the night. He was so proud. He came back in the house grinning and exclaiming that it didn’t even lose its tail. Wow!
In honor of the animal kingdom, today’s recipe is vegetarian.
Baked Eggplant with Mushrooms
1 peeled eggplant, cut into ¼ inch slices (about 1 ¼ lb.)
Cooking spray
1 cup chopped onion
½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
¼ teaspoon salt
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 8 oz. package mushrooms, sliced
black pepper
1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
2/3 cup shredded part skim mozzarella cheese
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan
Preheat broiler
Arrange eggplant slices on a baking sheet coated with Pam. Broil 3 minutes on each side or until lightly browned.
Preheat oven to 375 ° .
Heat a large non-stick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium heat; add onions and next 4 ingredients (onion through mushrooms). Cover and cook 7 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Increase heat to medium high. Uncover and cook until liquid evaporates.
Spread half of mushroom mixture in bottom of 1 ½ quart baking dish coated with Pam. Arrange half of eggplant slices over mushrooms. Sprinkle with pepper. Top with half of tomato sauce and half of mozzarella. Spread remaining mushroom mixture; top with remaining eggplant. Sprinkle with pepper and top with remaining tomato sauce and cheeses.
Bake, uncovered 5 minutes or until cheese melts. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.
4 servings.
