Fat Cats and Cupcakes

I love Saturday mornings.  I wake up and think it's a work day, but then I realize it's SATURDAY and I sink back into my pillows with a contented smile.  On this particular Saturday, I rolled over and grabbed my phone to check my email.  I was unwilling to leave my big bed and start the day.  Waiting for me in my in box was a news forward from my step dad.  Apparently CNN had an article on the obesity epidemic in pets.  There are many ways I like to wake up.  Many of these ways start with a delicious man with a shaved head laying next to me ...  But I digress.  On the list of all the ways I like to start my day on a Saturday, reading a CNN article on obese pets just does not make the list.  SHOCKING, I know!

To put the cherry on top, in addition to the CNN article was tips from my step dad that my cats should be on a treadmill and eating broccoli snacks.  Happy Saturday Morning!  If my cats could type, they'd be scribing some choice words for my step dad.

Eventually when I finally left the warm loveliness of my bed, I grabbed my laptop and sent my step dad the following picture with the subject line:  "Finnerty Cat asks: Is this broccoli?"

(And nooooo, animal lovers- I did not feed Finnerty a chocolate cupcake.  I know chocolate is bad for dogs and I am pretty sure it doesn't make cats feel all warm and fuzzy inside either.  Please do not send me hate mail.  No cats were harmed in the making of this blog post.)

My step dad wrote back: "That doesn't look like broccoli."

Moral of the story - if you're going to send me an article on pet obesity, I am going to send you pictures of "Cats Gone Wild."

If you're a regular reader of Lily on the Lam, you'll know that the above pictured cat (Finnerty J. Moomaw) is an a--hole.  As evidenced in not one, but two posts on this particular blog.  (Click here for Evidence One and Evidence Two.)  I fully expect that Finnerty will be sending me a bill for "modeling" in the above cupcake photo.

This picture was taken in December 2011.  I was at Datz Deli in Tampa, Florida and saw this gorgeous cupcake.  I rationalized that for the sake of this blog, I needed to try out this cupcake!  Seriously, my readers need to know about local cupcakes, right?

I tried to take a picture of the cupcake and a certain a--hole cat decided he needed to be in the photo as well.  Perhaps Finnie will spark a new trend - cupcakes and kittens.

I really like Datz Deli.  I like the vibe, the atmosphere, the alcohol selection and their creative food selection makes me feel like I am in a more sophisticated city.  (Sorry Tampa!)  However, this gorgeous cupcake from Datz Deli's bakery section was highly disappointing.  This cupcake was the sexy guy at the bar who can't stop talking about his case of foot fungus.  On the outside, it looked so promising.  And then you take a bite and it's just a lot of sadness!  The chocolate ganache was the best part - rich, sweet and delicious.  But the cupcake was dried out.  We're talking desert in July, dried out.  And the cake to filling ratio was way off.

Now normally the sight of this much filling in a cupcake would drive me to drool uncontrollably.  However instead of a delicious, soft, creamy filling; it was a hard, thick mass of flavorless buttercream.  At least I think it was buttercream.  It tasted like lard mixed with dried out wallpaper paste.  I wondered how long this gorgeous cupcake was sitting in the Datz Deli bakery case.  Was the cupcake ever good?  Is it just a victim of old age?  Or was it bad from the start?  Disappointment, thy name is dried out cupcake.

For lunch today, in honor of my step dad, I had a bowl of steamed broccoli sprinkled with lemon juice, cayenne pepper and freshly ground garlic.  It was bright green, crisp and lovely.  My cats didn't want to eat it, but I did.  And it was tasty.

Score 1 for broccoli and zero for cupcakes today.

P.S.  Finnerty is still an a--hole but is available for cupcake modeling.