Anthropological Study of Brooklyn Male Making Banana Bread

anthropology

“It’s true that I wasn’t paying attention to the recipe,” subject admits. “My plan was to just mix everything together.”

4:58 p.m. Subject announces desire to “whip up” some banana bread. Makes telephone call to sister-in-law, the source of excellent banana bread recipe, to discuss some possible alterations. Subject is heard to become very distracted, however, and start talking about horses instead.

6:10 p.m. Observer enters kitchen to see if it will soon be clear for dinner preparation. Banana bread still in early stages.
“Do we have a sifter?” subject asks, eyeing the brown sugar.
“I think you’re supposed to pack brown sugar,” observer offers.
“Ah, right,” subjects says, and then adds sugar to dry ingredients.
“Doesn’t sugar usually go with the wet ingredients?” observer asks innocently.
Subject becomes bashful and starts to pick out chunks of brown sugar with a fork. Mentions that maybe it won’t matter since he is substituting Greek yogurt for butter. Observer begins to have serious doubts about edibility of final product.

6:47 p.m. Subject becomes very dejected about de-sugaring process. Decides to wait until after observer has cooked dinner to finish banana bread endeavor. Subject then remembers the foraged black walnuts that have been in the refrigerator for months due to both the subject and the observer being too lazy to hull them. Subject retires to front stoop to smash them with rocks.

8:30 p.m. Observer tries to assess subject’s confidence level. Subject responds: “You know, I’m feeling more confident than ever. I feel like you are losing confidence, but mine is only growing. It may have been a rough start in some ways to some people, but I’m not worried.” Continue reading

What Will Oscar Eat?: Spring Greens Edition

what will oscar eat?My cat Oscar has always had rather peculiar tastes for a feline. The smell of white beans has the same effect on him as catnip. In summer months, he answers to the nickname Tomato Slayer because of all the mornings we have woken to find heirlooms that have been rolled from a high shelf in the middle of the night and gruesomely mauled on the kitchen floor. If any sauce is left foolishly unattended on the stovetop, Oscar is sure to come slinking into the living room with a guilty little beard of it staining his white chin fur. And though all of these habits are exceedingly irritating, I won’t pretend that they don’t also fill me with a strange kind of pride: maybe my pet is special, a feline gastronome.

The boundaries of Oscar’s tastes have never been scientifically tested, however, and if my claims of his spectacular feline palate are to hold any water, they should be well documented. So I set up a little experiment with some salad greens to see if Oscar would demonstrate his omnivorous tendencies. Here are my scientific observations:

in the laboratory

With red leaf lettuce, baby spinach and kale spread out before him, the subject headed straight for the kale. (The researcher initially attributed this to the fact that it was the only organic number in the bunch, but then discarded this hypothesis after remembering that the subject has been known to eat the puke of other cats. The kale was also closest to the subject.) Continue reading