We've had an unusual snowfall here recently. When it snows, I don't like to drive anywhere, even in the evenings and even if we've run out of a staple food. Instead, I like to revel in the beauty of it all and feel safe and snug.
Here is a view of our pasture in the snow.
We ran out of grapes this morning, which is what Bow likes to have for the first course of breakfast. But we still had goodies in the fruit basket that Bow's uncle sent him for Christmas. So Bow had a juicy pear instead of grapes.
It's nice to have a ripe pear for breakfast before dawn. And a slight variation in our routine is good for all of us.
Here's to an interesting and happy and hopeful new year!
Bow loves food. But he also likes to play. Yesterday, for Christmas, Bow got three gifts. Now, compared to what most children get on Christmas day, that may not seem like much. But for Bow, opening a gift and enjoying its contents is a very leisurely activity. In the past, when he got a whole pile of gifts, he took days, weeks and months to get around to opening them all.
Over time we have learned that more is sometimes less, and we have minimized gifts for Bow at special occasions. Bow had a hardy breakfast before he was presented with his 2012 Christmas gifts. Perhaps that is why he chose to open the non-edible gifts first.
But eventually, when he selected a few items from his third gift, a fruit basket sent by his uncle, his enjoyment of the goodies was quite evident.
Toys and trinkets can be fun, but food is essential!
The highlight of Bow's lunch this afternoon was pickle salad, consisting of orange cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas in the pod and miniature dill pickles.
Usually, Bow leaves his vegetables for the last course, preferring the sweet juicy apples over every other portion of the meal. But today, he asked for the vegetables first. I'm thinking it has something to do with the pickles!
Sometimes you run out of cereal. That's okay, because you don't actually have to eat cereal. There are so many other, better things to eat. But when you are a chimpanzee, and you have finished your grapes, and you are accustomed to getting cereal for the next course, it can be a little disappointing.
For just such an occasion, you can break out the granola bars. They are just as bad for you as cereal, consisting mostly of oats and honey. They come in a bar, so that you can go on a hike and eat them without making too much of a mess. But if you are hankering for a messy eat, like cereal and milk, all you have to do is break the bar down into smaller pieces.
Then you pour on the milk. It looks just like cereal with milk, and it tastes a lot like it, too.
However, when you do all this in front of your chimpanzee, he will not be fooled. He won't call it cereal. He will call it "granola and milk." But if he enjoys eating it, anyway, your work is done!
The problem with Thanksgiving is that there is so very much of it. Once the meal is prepared there is what the French call anembarras de richesses: too many options.
With Bow, there is also the problem that he expects lunch to be served to him at exactly twelve noon. But it very seldom happens -- no matter how early we start -- that the turkey is ready at exactly twelve noon. Two o'clock is more like it. But Bow can be very belligerent if his expectations are not met, and some of the rest of us also grow a little cranky unless we eat something, so part of our Thanksgiving tradition is to have a light snack before the big meal.
In past years, when I was responsible for the snack, I offered decorated boiled eggs. But this year, my mother brought cranberry nut bars that she'd baked at home, before her trip to Missouri.
We all had some, and they were delicious!
But in Bow's case, I served the cranberry nut bars as part of a substantial snack, because he really does expect to have lunch at noon.
I served the plate of cranberry nut bars with a fork, because I wasn't sure whether one would be needed. But when Bow got his serving, he held the fork in one hand and the cranberry bars in the other. My mother explained to Sword that the way Bow was doing it was right, because if it's a bar, you are supposed to treat it like finger food. In this video, while Bow eats, you can hear my mother saying this.
When the turkey and stuffing were ready, I first took pictures of them in the kitchen.
My mother was the chief cook, and she prepared the turkey, the two kinds of stuffing and the cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes, and Sword baked the pumpkin pie. Everything looked nice in the dining area when it was first taken out of the oven.
But then we needed to transport everything to the pens.
When Bow saw the feast shaping up in the pens, he gave way to his instincts with great cries of joy. These cries are involuntary, and their natural effect is to alert others in the social group to the fact that food has been spotted. Even if a chimpanzee very selfishly wishes to keep an entire feast to himself, his nature betrays him, he cannot keep his joy a secret and he ends up having to share.
The first course of the feast for Bow was a turkey wing.
The second course he requested was cranberry sauce. He calls it "red".
Bow's table manners seem to grow worse with satiety, for he is less sloppy and more careful when he is hungry. The next course he asked for was stuffing. But he was not really hungry, anymore. He sampled some, sniffing suspiciously, and then he handed me the spoon. At first, I thought he wanted me to feed him. But then it turned out that he wanted me to try it.
He never finished the stuffing. And when five o'clock rolled around -- our usual supper time -- he didn't want me to prepare a meal. Instead, he wanted to go to sleep early. I put him to bed at 6:00 o'clock and that was our Thanksgiving Day.
It is good to have a feast in the company of family members when the food is so abundant we have more than enough, but Bow and I are also grateful for all the other days of the year, when we never get too full. Food is best enjoyed in smaller doses.
My mother is here for her annual Thanksgiving visit, and she came bearing gifts. One of them was a packet of black sesame powder.
I first became acquainted -- and virtually addicted -- to this treat when I lived in Taiwan. Half my attraction was because of the unique flavor of sesame seed powder. The other half was due to the fact that there was a lot of sugar in those powder packets with the Quaker label that I was buying in the local Taiwanese supermarket.
This time around, though, the blacx sesame powder that my mother bought at her local Chinese food store in Indiana came unsweetened, which means that we can choose to use less sugar, or even enjoy the sesame flavor unsweetened.
When I made it for Bow, I added a single lump of sugar to the boiled water and the sesame powder. He knew what it was at once when he saw it among his choices for lunch.
When he asked for it, he simply called it "porridge". (דיסה). He knows what it is, because he has had it many times before. At first, our friend June brought us a supply from Taiwan. Then later, I ordered it online. And this week, it was grandma who brought us some.
Bow enjoyed his porridge, eating slowly, savoring the feast before him. It did not bother him at all that there was quiet conversation while he ate. Sometimes it's nice to have company.
After he finishes his grapes in the morning, Bow usually asks for cereal. Why? Because he sees me eating cereal. And while I realize that there are many arguments against the nutritious value of cereal for breakfast, I always give in.
Why? Well, because it would be two-faced to tell him he can't have cereal when I'm having it. And for sentimental reasons. Bow had a language breakthrough years ago that involved cereal. It was the "brown mouth" incident, and you can read all about it here:
So when I have cereal, Bow has what I have. When we have bacon and eggs, Bow has bacon and eggs.
I don't do well with wheat products, so the cereal I have is oatmeal based. But you might be asking yourself: aren't all chimpanzees lactose intolerant? The answer is: no.
When Bow was an infant, he was fed on soy formula, just in case. But as he grew older, and he started eating whatever we ate, it turned out he didn't have any problem digesting milk. I have a hunch that lactose intolerance is an innovation, and that the whole argument that we were never "intended" to drink cow's milk is a new kind of sophistry. If snakes can drink cow's milk, and they are not even mammals, there is no reason to assume the rest of us should not. Of course, if you have an allergy to cow's milk, you should probably not be drinking it. But that's something that people need to decide for themselves on a case by case basis.
Which is not to say that Bow and I drink that much milk. It is a very small amount that we put in our cereal, and we usually leave some in the bowl. We don't go around drinking glasses full of milk. We just don't want to, so we don't.
Anyway, Bow takes his time eating his cereal, and it seems to make him happy.
