Food-o-File

Though it's been more than 20 years since I owned a pet, the news that people were losing their beloved companions because of tainted pet foods has been very distressing. In discussions about this terrible event with friends, acquaintances, and some of our contributing writers, I discovered that several of them were cooking for their pets and realized we had the potential for a story that might be useful to our readers. One of our contributing writers, Kate Thornberry, shares the recipes she prepares for her dogs, as does local chef/restaurateur Lisa Fox, profiled by Suzy Banks. Now, I was never the kind of pet owner who would cook specifically for my dogs. My last canine companion, a huge white German shepherd named Cheers, ate dry food regularly complemented with catering scraps. I'll never forget the startled look on his face the day he bit into an errant cherry tomato he discovered on the kitchen floor or my horror when I turned my back for a second and then caught him, front paws on the dining-room table, face down in a pan of chocolate cake. (Luckily, he survived that incident unharmed.) At the time, I considered myself far too busy catering for humans to be cooking for the dog, and I remember thinking how funny it was when I met people who went to the trouble to prepare meals for their pets. People like former Herb Bar owner Connie Moore, a devout vegetarian who spent years dutifully cooking meat for her huge, beautiful Rhodesian ridgebacks, and writer Fran Moody, loving chef to a menagerie of dogs, cats, and birds. I didn't realize then that knowing them would eventually come in so handy. But when it came time to put together the feature on cooking for pets, I knew exactly where to turn. Moody has provided us with great basic information on Pet Food 101, and she reminded me about a little gem of a book written by Moore and her former business partner Janette Grainger. They self-published Natural Insect Repellents for Pets, People, and Plants in the Nineties, and it is the definitive book on environmentally friendly and safe solutions to pest problems. Best of all, it contains one chapter detailing the components of a healthy diet for pets and another chapter of recipes. This book is only available via mail order for $11.45 from Fran Moody, Writer's Ink, PO Box 766, Columbus, TX 78934.