Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s card is a favorite that has been in my pile clamoring for attention. This by the artist Maurice Boulanger who was one of the heirs apparent to the Louis Wain throne. (I wrote about another one in my collection recently and that post can be found here.) Here we have not the chef kitty, but instead a bibbed-up consumer cat served up this very large rodent, albeit unadorned by trimmings, on a platter. Mr. Rodent hardly looks deceased, but we will assume he is. Kitty is toothy and anxious to dive right in it seems.

Boulanger cats have a Wain-esque tendency toward an anthropomorphic wackiness, but they seem to not to be as sly and are less of a commentary on human nature, more feline in a way. This grinning fellow clearly has a ferocious appetite and can’t wait to dive into munching on this rat on display atop this dish, from whiskers to the tip of the tail. He stands on two feet and wears a bib (which probably covers a white bib of tabby design fur no less) but only his paws are in evidence – we imagine just teeth and claws in play. No human utensils for him. Below this dish at the bottom it declares, Un Repas Succulent – A Delicious Meal. Or in my mind the more descriptive, a succulent repast!

Obviously, this is a French postcard for all intents and purposes as I believe that the writing across the front and the back is in French – although the postcard actually appears to have Eastern European produced. (If anyone wants to take a stab at translating the message I would love to have a sense of what is written here.) And as is often the case, the neat scribble on the front adds to the decorative element. It was mailed to an address in Paris in March of 1906, but I can’t read much else from the cancellation. Again, the small, neat writing on the back escapes my rudimentary translation skills.

For those of you in the same neck of the woods as us at Deitch Studio, you know that at the time of writing this it is the end of another frigid week of weather in New York City. Although I can think of several equally impressive snowstorms, I cannot remember one where it stayed so cold that that snow just didn’t go anywhere and here we reside a week later in piles that are still knee high, garbage piling up even higher where trucks cannot get it. (Speaking of rats!) The City makes attempts to dispose of the snow manually while Mother Nature continues to deliver a bit more here and there.

Clearly, we will have one of those spring thaws where things long buried will emerge on the streets. The temperature in the early morning and the nights hovers in the single digits and dips well below zero with the wind. The (blissful) heat in the apartment runs constantly and despite being 1.5 small rooms I expect the bill to be high. The cost of heating the house in New Jersey, even without us there, is a bit staggering this year. Meanwhile, the heat in my office is oddly mercurial and reduced substantially by an ill-conceived wall of windows so it has been a very chilly week indeed and I hunker down with a mug of hot coffee to write this.

All this to set the stage to talk about the wonders that hot food can manifest in this weather. Recent weeks has seen me doubling down on soups and stews. (I shared a miso based soup recipe recently – you can find the post here.) We don’t eat meat, so pots of bubbling beans and tofu make up the stews along with whatever greens or leftovers in the fridge need cooking up. Each one tends to come out different for that reason – black beans seem to be the winner recently, although the chickpea curries are gaining ground. There is a simply wonderful spicy chili crisp tofu recipe that I retrieved from the New York Times (it can be found here at the time of writing) which has become a bit of a staple.

Last week I had a yen for a brothier soup after lots of thick ones and threw together one I will make again. Roughly it was ginger, garlic, onion, and carrots to start with two containers of vegetable broth, some miso, a small can of diced tomatoes and flat leaf parsley and finished with a package of cheese tortellini added at the end. I let it simmer all afternoon on the stove and really, it was heavenly! This week I am experimenting with a simple potato leek soup a friend makes but boy – last week’s soup will go into a regular rotation.

Soup and stew, hot food in general, the ability to make it, afford it and eat it, is a blessing especially in the cold weather. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the very act of making it calms and reassures me. Hot meals for the cold week ahead. Lower perhaps in pure protein than this feline repast but will fill us up and keep us going nonetheless.