how i learned to love the bomb.

or 'steamed tilapia appetizer in a delicate broth.'

those of you who know me might know that for some time, fancy feast has been a bit of a joke. i do not feed my cat fancy feast, as it is something that other cats - cats that i have loved less, dare i say, not loved at all - have eaten. my beloved callie has refined and specific tastes. she really loves, for example, her iams dry. she, as a rule, will not touch the pureed type of wet food. she also does not particularly like the "chunks in gravy" variety. she does not even like leftover fish that i bring to her from fancy-pants restaurants like the sole. she does like stonyfield farms vanilla yogurt, balsamic vinegar, and soy milk.

also, there's something satisfying about bringing home a 10 pound bag of iams and scooping some into your cat's dish every day. it's like feeding your children cheerios rather than some crazy dried-milk-already-added cereal bar. like buying them a nice l.l. bean backpack rather than some plastic barbie number. sensible. nutritious. wholesome.

as a third point, i would mention that my family likes to eat. we get together and we eat a lot. there is constant worry that people are not eating enough. 'have you lost weight?' my mother would ask with a critical tone every time i came home from college (i had not). in med school, checks started to appear in my mailbox. 'buy groceries!' read the accompanying cards. my father has a tendency to hover at the end of a meal, serving spoon in hand: 'do you want the last scoop of pasta? it's not enough to save, but we don't want to waste it! just a bite. there!'

now, back to my original point. about 3 weeks ago, my cat had some unfortunate tooth extractions. particularly unfortunate for me, since i had to pay for this. as a result, she was ordered to have no dried food for 7 days. i tried all sorts of tricks with iams canned food, adding water to her dried, no luck. she was practically on hunger strike. my previously overweight cat was melting away in front of my eyes! desperate, i stumbled across a little something called fancy feast appetizers and bought an assortment: the steamed tilapia, the wild alaskan salmon, the flaked skipjack tuna. she ate them! they saved my cat from the brink of starvation (also known as 'achieving a normal weight')! this stuff basically looks like something you or i might mix a little dressing in with and smear onto a pita. so that was fine for a week, and then i thought we'd just go back to our normal diet. but now she's not eating enough! i can't tell if her teeth hurt or if she's just spoiled. so i crumbled in the grocery store and bought more steamed tilapia, the shrimp and seabass blend, tongol tuna and flaked chicken. to further compound the craziness, the whole time i'm thinking of the card i got from the environmental defense fund detailing the impact of each individual fish choice.

in short, i am now someone who buys fancy feast.

tell me. am i crazy? am i resigning myself to a life of half-empty cat food cans lining the fridge? should i stand my ground or am i slowly killing the cat? if she's otherwise bopping around the apartment like normal can i assume she isn't in starvation city?

finally, what the heck is skipjack tuna, and is it really so different from tongol?