Soup

One of our staple meals is a roasted Cornish hen with baked sweet potatoes for dinner. I've been making that ever since we moved here to Missouri in 2001, before Bow was born. Up till now the Cornish hens cost 1.98 a piece. I would feed the drippings to the dogs, in order to supplement their fat intake. But quite recently, after disappearing from the shelves for a couple of weeks altogether, the inexpensive Cornish hens came back -- priced at 2.75 a piece.

There are many different ways to deal with something like that when you are on a fixed income. One way is to go for a less expensive type of chicken. An older, tougher chicken that is pumped full of hormones. But I chose the Cornish hens we eat for two reasons: they taste really good, and they are natural. So I decided to try to make up the difference in price by having the same Cornish hen provide me with the fat intake for lunch, too. This means no more drippings for the dogs.

Instead, every night when I am washing up, I save the drippings in a container for use in the following day's lunch.

Here is how I used the drippings yesterday to make chicken soup.

The soup was not the only item on the menu for Bow or for me.

Bow's lunch consisted of two apples, two bananas and soup. The soup met with mixed reviews. Bow enjoyed fishing out each of the carrots, and he did slurp a bit if the soup, too. But it was not good to the last drop, as far as he was concerned. Next time, I'm adding onions!

Cheese, Glorious Cheese

Just in case you have ever wondered whether chimpanzees like cheese: the answer, if  Bow is any indication, is a resounding "Yes!" Today, for lunch, Bow was presented with the following foods: an apple, two bananas, cherry tomatoes and sugar snap peas and a plate of cheddar cheese. He chose to have the cheese first. He was quite eager to try the cheese.

Now, we don't have cheese every day. But Bow has had cheese in the past, and he recognized this as cheese and called it by name.

It may not be a natural part of the chimpanzee diet, but cheese is one of those foods that appeals to the desire for more dietary fat. All you have to do is watch him eat it, to see how much Bow appreciates having cheese in his diet.