Spaghetti with Lemon-Parmigiano Sauce

 

We tried another simple pasta dish for dinner the other day. This too is from Food52. Spaghetti with Lemon-Parmigiano Sauce and the recipe can be found here. You need a generous helping of olive oil and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese along with some lemons and salt and pepper. It was delicious and I am really loving all the simplistic dishes I’ve been making lately that provides just the kind of flavor I am seeking.

With all this cooking I was inspired to rearrange my kitchen yesterday (again - for like the bajillionth time). There was an itch to make things flow a bit easier - from preparing, cooking to clean up. I’m not sure if I’ve found the right formula but it’ll work, for now.

Our home has the oddest layout in most (or maybe all) rooms and I have a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with our kitchen. The cabinets are not practical and they are old, crooked, installed terribly and have a lot of wasted space. While we’ve been meaning to give our kitchen an upgrade for years (new cabinets, appliances and countertops) we wanted to actually hire people to do it instead of doing it ourselves because I wanted it to be done properly and not haphazardly like our current kitchen. I mean, you should see our countertop too, a lot of mismatched pieces stuck together in a horrible way where water leaks into the drawers right below the countertop. Like.. really? But with senior dogs and their medical issues and paying for their needs has kept our budget a little tight and so the kitchen renovation has been on the back burner (Noah’s dental back in December alone was $4000 which we are still paying off). One day though. One day (along with a bathroom upgrade too!)

Here is an end to the most relaxing three day weekend. We did a little BBQ with our tiny grill and watched an unhealthy amount of Sweet Magnolias on Netflix (it’s so bad but so addicting…)

Have a wonderful week ahead.

When

 

Every morning I anticipate whether we’ll have a fairly good start or not. It usually depends on how well Noah does throughout the night - how many times did he get up, of those times how many times was there a need for a bathroom break, if it was a bathroom break was he able to pee on his own. Those are just some indicators.

Some days Noah does great.

Other days not so much.

But the one thing that remains constant with him is how well he eats and how perfect his stool is.

I know. Talking about stool consistencies is gross but this has been one of the main indicators of senior pet health for me (dogs undergoing cancer treatment, dogs with kidney disease and other dogs with other medical issues are likely to have diarrhea or GI upset - Noah has none of that. His poops are literally perfect). Noah’s main thing is his inability to walk for a long period of time without knuckling. Or when he isn’t knuckling his back legs will give out and we will eventually fall. He’ll sometimes trip over as well as his front paw/nails might get caught.

Nevertheless, it’s been a confusing few weeks for me. How do I make a decision on a dog’s fate when the two main indicators that have told me about quality of life for my other dogs is actually really great for Noah? Yes there are definitely other things that factor into a dog’s quality of life, like mobility and how connected he is to his daily life, but when I see his perky face and eyes and his eagerness to move, I just can’t help but to continue to find ways to support him.

Back in November, Noah’s T4 tested low. Then in March it tested even lower. He was never given medication. His blood pressure in March was also higher than normal (170) but again wasn’t given medication. He was working through his vestibular syndrome and so the vet didn’t want to overload him with medications. She gave him just three days to turn around (I’ve read that dogs usually need 2 weeks to come out of a vestibular syndrome) and if he didn’t then she highly suggested euthanasia because Noah could have brain tumor ( I have been told that Bartles and Lady also had brain tumor, which seemed so incredible.. three dogs in a row with brain tumor). That freaked me out.

When we were supposed to check back with the vet over the phone, Noah ended up eating better but he still had a severe head tilt and couldn’t walk on his own. I reported back and made an appointment for a recheck, which I ended up canceling. Part of it was the whole Covid19 scare but another part of it was that I was afraid she would tell me to put him down because he wasn’t improving the way she had wanted him to.

I know… it sounds completely ridiculous and may even read irresponsible.

I think over the years of adopting senior dogs, some with medical issues, the level of support in moving forward with treatment for a very old dogs seemed less than enthusiastic. Or that is just the feeling I got. I never felt this with Piri, whom we had an established vet with who supported every treatment we wanted to pursue (she has since moved and we have been vet hopping since). But I’ve felt it with my other dogs.

And so we’ve been trying to address those issues (Thyroid and hypertension) at home through natural homeopathic methods, which are alway a crapshoot (sometimes they’ll work, other times they won’t, but you have to give at least 3 weeks to see results - but perhaps medicine too is a crapshoot as well. They don’t always work and you always have to deal with side effects).

Noah got up at 4 am and then 6 am to pee and has been sleeping ever since.

This is a good start. Now we’ll have to see how the rest of the day plays out.

Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

 

Dinners lately haven’t felt complicated or frustrating or tiring. It’s kind of the best feeling. I don’t know why dinners sometimes felt so daunting in the past. Perhaps I was picking the wrong recipes or maybe I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I do now. There is a nice rhythm to things and a curiosity I don’t think I ever had in the kitchen.

Tonight - post Momo’s dinner and pre Noah’s - I got to making Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with onion and butter, which I also saw on Food52’s IGTV. It was perfectly simple and delicious.

The recipe is here and you can also see how it is made on Food52’s IGTV.

And what did we do with our onion? We decided to leave it in the sauce.

Yesterday we had a triple movie marathon in the evening beginning with Angels & Demons then Men in Black: International and finally Escape Room (kind of sad but we had the most fun watching Escape Room). I have to finish up my current book, The Acts of King Arthur and His Nobel Knights by John Steinbeck (on the last story), but I think we may do another movie night. I’m sure we’ll find something between Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ (anyone else spend an unhealthy amount of time just scrolling through titles and watching the previews and trailers?)

I’m just about to join everyone downstairs. Yangkyu is already downstairs with the dogs but I still like to keep an eye out on things through the pet cam. And it looks like both Noah and Momo are sleeping soundly. Sweet pups.

Another day in the books. Another peaceful evening in progress.

I did a dog mom thing

 

So this Sunday is Mother’s Day and I did not know this until a couple years ago but National Dog Mom’s Day falls on the day before Mother’s Day. And so I did a thing. A dog mom thing. I ended up buying my two doggos collars from The Foggy Dog even though Noah probably won’t be needing it any more because he’s sick and weak and we are literally taking things day by day with him with the possibility that we may say our good-byes soon.

But let me explain.

We give all our dogs their own colors. Piri was red; Bartles was blue; Lady was orange; Momo is pink and Noah is green. Noah is green because just as evergreen trees remain green throughout the year no matter the season we wanted Noah to remain the way he is throughout the year no matter his age (I posted about this on Instagram last year, just a month after we adopted him). And so when I saw this evergreen dog collar I knew I had to get it for him but only after I found this orchid dog collar for Momo. How perfect are they, don’t you think? (and there is a Mother’s Day Sale going on at The Foggy Dog - 15% off with the code BESTDOGMOM - not sponsored, no affiliate links)

I saw a few other things that caught my eye (some things I already own) and wanted to link them here (again none of the links are sponsored or are affiliate links):

01 // Most of this is for my dog tote bag

02 // Lavender sea salt rub from Dog Mountain online shop (and heck anything and everything from here - we’ve been to Dog Mountain with Lady and left a note for Piri and Bartles. It is a beautiful place everyone should go at least once)

03 // Adopt the Underdogs t-shirt (I love this one because I use it as a hashtag sometimes for Momo and Noah - they were from Korea, both old, Noah had kidney disease, Momo had a history of illnesses she had recovered from and both super skittish)

04 // Find What Feels Good Benji shirt (I actually have this. I follow along to this yoga platform)

05 // Leave me alone I’m only speaking to my dog today tea towel (I have this as well. Picked it up during a trip to St. Michaels one year with Piri)

06 // Ceramic measuring cups and spoons

07 // Hand painted Dog planters (shop based in Australia)

08 // Ask Me About My Dog Enamel Pin (I am a sitter on Rover and I never knew they had a shop)

09 // My Kind of Person mug

10 // Dog mom sweatshirt

Have a wonderful weekend!

Tiny Explorer

 

Momo the tiny explorer inspecting the grounds.

We have some container gardening going on in the backyard this year. We got rid of our garden beds after a disastrous year of having all our vegetables devoured by birds and critters. We had lovely strawberries and watermelon and peppers forming and then they were gone. I put up nets but somehow they managed to get past them. And so we decided to good bye to gardening.

But I missed growing some of our own food and so after taking a year off we decided to take it easy and plant just a few things this year - tomatoes, cucumbers, basil and perilla leaves - things we love to eat. I took a risk and skipped the seed starter part and planted them right in our containers. Then the very next day squirrels came and dug everything up.

I have since used a net to cover all our containers but what began as high hopes of having good harvest this year turned quickly turned to quite a dreadful forecast.

Lemony Asparagus Pasta

 

Dinners should always be this simple and delicious.

I also found this on Food52’s IGTV and decided to make it for dinner last night. I absolutely love asparagus and we could really continue to intake as much vegetables as possible and bonus points if we could make it in a jiffy since Noah wasn’t feeling too well yesterday.

I don’t think I ever really enjoyed lemony flavors but lately I’ve been all about them. And I also tend to overcook my vegetables but the asparagus turned out just perfect last night giving it a perfect crunch and flavor.

As far as ingredients go, all you would need is pasta (I think the original recipe calls for spaghetti but can be substituted for something else), garlic, lemon, asparagus, butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, parmesan cheese (I love Grana Padano but we just ran out of it and so we did go with parmesan which the original recipe also calls for). The IGTV version doesn’t top the dish with ricotta but that can also be included as well.

You can find the original recipe here and you can also watch the recipe being put together on Food52’s IGTV here.

It’s just past 8 am here and Yangkyu’s phone is already going off with lots of work messages. There is already a load of wash done and finishing up in the dryer. Momo has gotten her breakfast and is taking her morning nap. Noah has had a couple of pee breaks and is also sleeping again. He doesn’t usually start his day until it’s about 3 or 4 pm (Piri was the same way). Lately he’s been having his best appetite in the evenings (same as Piri again). His walking which has been so fragile and unpredictable lately has gotten slightly bad again for a couple of days but he is still able to get around by himself. He does eventually fall but it isn’t every other step like it was two weeks ago. I give him gentle paw and leg massages and apply a soothing balm on them as well. He sometimes does these quick turns while walking and I see his paws firmly pressed on the floor and doing a 180 and I imagine that can get a bit sore (I just use a little Snout Soother on his paws). Noah gets plenty of love and pets and kisses on the head throughout the day. While doing so, he has the same grumpy old man face that is so reminiscent of Piri and Bartles.

When he eats he does so enthusiastically, which I am very thankful for. Momo still does her happy dance around him like she used to. While Momo has gotten a lot more independent, she still depends on Noah for comfort and safety. I don’t think she realizes how weak he has become but even so I think she still thinks he offers the same kind of security as when he was healthier and stronger. She really does love Noah.

It’s raining today and we’re expecting a couple of packages to arrive - both food actually for Momo and Noah and we have to head on over to Petsmart to pick up a new round dog bed. I saw it a couple of months ago but didn’t buy it then. It’s on huge sale today and extra 10% off if you order online and pick up at the store (total was around $21 - not bad!). So lots of dogs things and more dog things for us.

Here’s to another day. I hope it’s a a good one for you.