dining

L’argenterie royale

~ iamthesunking ~ 51 Comments

Louis Catorze is continuing to enjoy his mix of wet and dry food. However, he still expects the wet food, which is already in small pieces, to be cut up into EVEN SMALLER pieces for him. If we don’t do it he just leaves the food to go dry and gross, and this makes it much harder to clean the bowl.

(And, no, I have no idea how it is that he manages to rip the heads off rodents, yet he can’t bite into a small, soft piece of cooked fish unless humans cut it up for him.)

With this in mind, one of my friends sent Catorze some antique Louis XIV silverware (yes, SILVERWARE, not “cutlery” – merci, Google, for correcting me). What an unbelievably lucky Roi he is.

Oh. Mon. Dieu. Merci, Cathie!

Cat Daddy’s initial reaction: “What the f***? What is wrong with your friends?”

Cat Daddy’s follow-up reaction, upon discovering that Louis XIV silverware is a real thing and not something that I made up: “Ooh. That must be worth a bit!”

Naturellement, being special silverware, we can’t just sling it into the dishwasher alongside our own plebby stainless steel. Care instructions are as follows:

Separate the Metals

Never wash silver-plated flatware with stainless-steel flatware in the same dishwasher load. The silver and stainless steel chemically react in the presence of automatic dish-washing detergent, causing silver ions to disassociate from the silver plate and transfer to the stainless steel. This leaves pits on the silver plate and may cause spotting of the stainless steel, especially if the metals are touching each other.

Safe Way To Clean

Hand washing with a mild dish-washing liquid is the safest way to clean silver-plated flatware. Wash the flatware in hot sudsy water right after the meal is done. Rinse them with cool tap water and immediately dry with a clean, soft cloth.

Oh dear. Cat Daddy was already unhappy about how much hard work it is to wet-feed the little sod, with the cutting of the food and the frequent bowl changes, so he was not pleased at all to learn that we now need to hand-wash Catorze’s antique silverware. The Unrepeatable Expletives rang out through the air on that fine morn like the chimes of Big Ben on New Year’s Eve (except going on for considerably longer).

Sitting in proud admiration of himself, knowing that he deserves decent serving implements.

Here I am (below), having just used antique Louis XIV silverware to mash up already-soft Cool Cat Club cod and salmon pâté on Catorze’s Necoichi tilted stress-free (I’m not joking; it really is called that) cat bowl, adding a garnish of Orijen. Meanwhile, I am eating cheese on toast from a chipped Wilko* plate.

How did it come to this?

*Fancy followers: ask your more downmarket friends.

Marcus Wareing would be so impressed with this presentation.

J’ai dégusté ses poils avec des fèves au beurre et un excellent Chianti

~ iamthesunking ~ 12 Comments

On Friday night there was no sign of Louis Catorze, which was rather unusual as he has slept on our bed with us pretty much every night ever since the first day he came to live with us. That said, since the time he hid somewhere in the house (hiding place still unknown) and we made Oscar the dog’s folks go searching in their shed for him in the middle of a storm, we have learned not to panic too much at his disappearances.

When Cat Daddy went downstairs and opened the dining room door the next morning, out shot Catorze, all indignant and screamy. Yes, the little sod had used his Cloak of Invisibility to sneak in and had been shut in there all night.

I heard Cat Daddy say, “Well, it’s your own fault. You should have meowed for help.” Then I heard purring and squeaking, which are the classic signs of Boys’ Club rough play and forgiveness for whatever misdemeanour may have previously occurred.

Luckily Catorze hadn’t turned the dining room into les toilettes, nor had he trashed the place doing parkour trying to get out. However, he had managed to break into the cupboard containing all the good crockery and cutlery and had rolled all over everything. This photo is of one of our napkins:

Now, the cat people that I know fall into one of two camps when it comes to this kind of thing:

1. Disinfect and/or incinerate everything
2. Dust it off and nobody will notice

Dinner guests past and present, you will be relieved to know that Cat Daddy and I are firmly numéro 1. I think it’s safe to say that, given the choice, most people wouldn’t opt to eat from tableware that has been rolled on by a gross cat. And, whilst they wouldn’t necessarily know about it, we would.

The contents of the cupboard are now cleaner than an operating theatre. And, as the festive season approaches, Sa Maj is ready to receive pilgrims, both old and new, for dinner.