I have a confession to make.
I am now a thief.
And my hamster drove me to it.
My spiral into the miasma of a life of thievery and deception began with the best of intentions. Myachik, a Russian Dwarf hamster, who reaches a delicate 2" in length when he stretches out, needs certain produce in his diet. The carrots, apples and zuccini he likes aren’t a problem -Mr. singular and I are happy to take up the slack and eat what he can’t put away before it goes bad. It even improves our diet a bit. But there is an important element missing from his diet, and therein lies the source of my sin.
Kale.
He has to have kale.
Kale is the retarded violent cousin of cabbage. Collard greens without the forgiving charm of Southern Culture. The Mussolini of the Leafy Green s world.
And you can’t buy a little bit of kale. No, you have to buy a whole freakin’ blob of kale. A hienous insult to your refigerator that will turn into a slimy, stinky bag of hell in your crisper long before a tiny hamster can work his way through the tip of a single leaf.
So I had no choice. While buying groceries, I found myself surrupticiously tearing a 3" chunk off the head of kale and stashing it into the center of a head of leaf lettuce. Imagine how I trembled at the checkout line, hoping against hope that the cashier wouldn’t notice the incidious dark green ruffles peeking out of the benevolent layers of leaf lettuce.
Fortunately, my crime was not detected. I got the booty home and put it in a Ziplock snack bag. I tore off a small section and offered it to Myachik, never letting him know the shame the leafy morsel was bearing.
He loved it. He devoured it, and looked around, hoping for more. His lust for vitamin C, phytochemicals, sulforaphane, indoles and beta-carotene was sated - for now. But the kale will only last a couple weeks, and he will need more.
I have it on good authority that kale thieves are on the very bottom of the prison pecking order, below even the degraded souls who rip the tags off of mattresses.
gasp Heresy! Blasphemy! Shame, shame!
In all seriousness, shell out a few bucks for the kale if it’s really worth it to your hamster. No need to rip off the produce or grocery stores.
I love Kale! You just need to know how to cook it. Try this:
Set a big pot of salted water on the stove to boil (big enough for the amount of Kale you’re cooking which for me is a whole bag of the pre-washed stuff)
While that’s getting going brown up several slices of bacon (isn’t everything just better with bacon).
When the bacon is crispy take it out of the pan and discard all but about a tablespoon of the drippings. Put the hot pan back on the stove top and saute a generous quantity of chopped garlic (we like 6 or 7 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped) and 1 sweet onion, chopped, until they are carmelized and delicious.
While all that is happening your water probably boiled, put the kale in the boiling water and boil it for about 5 minutes.
When the kale is finished strain it in a colander and then add it to the frying pan with the garlic and onion. Crumble in the bacon, season liberally with salt and pepper. If you like it spicy add crushed red pepper to taste.
Pour in about half a cup of any kind of broth or stock you have in the pantry and let the whole mess cook down until the liquid is well reduced.
I think to help illustrate this story, I’m going to need to see a picture of the hamster. He sounds cute. I just have to ask, (I know nothing about Russian dwarf hamsters, so please bear with me) is he full grown?
I confirm that we need a picture of the beast that’s driven you to this madness.
Hm. I’m undecided about the buying a whole, um, ‘thing’ of kale or not. Maybe you could ask the produce department about buying some leaves from older kales?
I think Mr Bus Guy’s recipe is great. Hamsters are little ungrateful bastards. You just watch, singular1, how he repays you - with a nice big BITE out of your hand.
Yes, I’ve been traumatized by a hamster! Leave me alone! :runs off sobbing:
I’m betting that if you find a nice produce trimmer person and explain your situation, he or she will gladly give you a kale leaf every so often for free.
He looks a lot like this. I’ll post pictures as soon as I take them - we have a light situation to resolve first. He is just a baby, but he won’t get any bigger than 3". They are easy enough to tame, but man, are they ornery right off the bat! They are absolutely fearless, and his first gesture of gratitude upon being adopted was to bite the everlovin’ crap out of hubby’s finger, with a look of maniacal hamster fury. He would even bite your finger before taking the food from it. But Mr. singular is very patient, and now, after only a few weeks, Myachik will curl up in his hand and be petted, and he has learned not to literally bite the hand that feeds him. I got Myachik for Mr. singular in hopes of providing some distraction and comfort while I’m away at work - our beautiful lab passed away the week before, and he was his 24/7 companion. He is fun to watch - the level of energy is astonishing. He’s very fastidious, and frequently completely rearranges everything in his cage. Yeah, I think you want a hamster. I’m really glad he’s in our lives.
Oh, and velvetjones - I may try your kale recipe some day. We are trying to work more greens into our diet. Until then, I spoke to our produce guy, and I think he’s prepared to be a willing accomplise and let me have a stray leaf every few weeks, so hopefully you won’t see me being dragged off into the night on the next episode of Cops. If I do get nabbed, I’m gonna make Myachik bite the cop before I go - and then eat the evidence with some bacon!
