ArcaMax

A “Titanic” Update

Many of you have been asking how Titan is doing. Titan is the newest addition to our kitty family.

Titan came to us at 2.5 pounds.

Our little champ weighs in at a lean fighting weight of 11.6 pounds today.

He’s 10 months old and will grow to as large as 16 pounds.

That’s why we named him Titan.

Speaking of fighting...Titan has decided that Tut (our other male cat) is a chew toy. When Titan gets bored and wants to tussle, he goes and finds Tut. Tut is nine years old but he’s getting along with Titan and treats him like a little brother. They have lick fests sometimes but then Titan will just decide to chomp on one of Tut’s limbs and then the fighting begins. Their new thing is boxing matches. Neither of them have their front claws so it’s really kind of cute to watch them slap each other in the face. Back and forth. Not much hissing. Just fun play. When one or the other gets tired they seem respectful and just let it drop. Tut used to be 13 pounds. Since Titan arrived Tut has been getting a lot more exercise and has trimmed down. That’s all good news.

Titan can do about 32 miles an hour from a dead stop. He blasts through our house at lightening-speed. Tattoo is our older female. Tattoo is 11 years old and a teeny cat. She’s even small for Abyssinian standards. Full grown she is less than six pounds. I call her my little, bitty, mini-kitty. Tattoo is getting used to Titan but she’s not very tolerant of his wanting to play and wrestle. Titan has gotten the hint and leaves her alone most of the time. Titan’s new trick with Tattoo is to blast off running to where Tattoo is and just hurdle her. He doesn’t stop and chomp on her like he does Tut. He just treats her like a piece of playground equipment and jumps over her. By the time Tattoo figures out he was even coming he’s already gone.

Titan had a run-in the other day with a chain saw. That was unfortunate. For sure.

What happened is we were having our courtyard re-done. The new deck was installed and now it was time for the landscaping portion to begin. The crew was there and Titan was curious so he was out exploring the courtyard as they gathered their equipment and began their work.

I didn’t realize Titan was even in the garden when one of Spanish-speaking workers fired up a small chain saw so he could trim the errant branches on the pear trees.

Mayhem broke out.

Titan FREAKED.

Titan began scrambling to escape. Problem is the courtyard is rimmed on 3 sides by glass walls. The other side is brick. There was a door wide open but that was closer to the man with the chain saw so Titan didn’t want to run that way. I began screaming as Titan threw himself into the glass trying to escape. He could have easily broken his neck. He did it twice before the crew got the attention of the guy with the chain saw and got him to turn it off and I got Titan into the house.

Titan took off upstairs and made a mad scramble under the bed. At the same time I was trying to corral the other two cats.

Tut was frightened and began running to escape the noise also. Tattoo wasn’t flustered because she was on a different floor and asleep. In any case, I wanted them all safe in the bedroom before I was going to let that man start up his chain saw again.

I made sure Titan was not hurt but I couldn’t really get at him under the bed. He was right in the middle. I reached in to comfort him and he inched away. He saw this whole thing as my fault and he was quite angry with me. He was right. It was my fault. I had no idea the chain saw was even out there. I had no idea the guy was about to start it up. The crew was big and they were all speaking Spanish. My Spanish isn’t good enough to pay attention to five guys talking at once. But it was still my fault.

It took two days after that before Titan would set foot in the courtyard. But as you can see from this picture, he’s gotten over it. The courtyard is now open for humans and felines alike.

For today’s recipe, I wanted to offer up something quick and tasty. I have this soup with a grilled burger on the side. It travels well too.

This soup can be served hot or cold.

Serving size: one cup.

24 oz of roasted red bell peppers in a jar. Drain and rinse them thoroughly
1 large shallot, minced 3 tsp of minced garlic (jar garlic will work)
1/4 cup of tomato paste (no sugar)
3 cups of broth. (you can use chicken or vegetable broth or a mixture of both)
1/4 cup of heavy cream
Sea salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbl of minced, fresh basil

In a soup pot, spray lightly with olive oil and then add the shallots. Begin to cook on medium just until they loosen up. Add the garlic and tomato paste. Cook one minute. Then add the peppers and the broth. Cook about 15 minutes on a light bubbly boil to meld the flavors. Adjust seasoning with the addition of salt and pepper to your taste.

Now you are going to blend the soup in your blender. You might need to do this in two batches. If you are nervous about blending a hot mixture you can let it cool off and do this later. BE VERY CAREFUL. Whenever I blend something hot, I put a towel over the top of the blender and hold it down securely. The blender top will try to fly off if you don’t do this and you can end up with hot soup all over your kitchen. Blend the soup and put it back in the soup pot.

Add the cream and the basil. Bring it back to warm but don’t boil it again now that you've added the cream.

It’s ready to serve. You can chill leftovers in the refrigerator. If you want spicy soup you can add a bit of cayenne to the soup or when you serve it you can have hot sauce on the side.

This is meant to be an Italian soup but you can easily turn it into a Mexican one with the addition of the spicy and you can change the basil to cilantro if you want.

Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola