cats

Make Your Own Civet Coffee

For years, I’ve been wanting to try the delicacy known as Kopi Luwak–or Civet Coffee–which comes from the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Bali. The coffee is made by feeding beans to wild civets and then, after digestion, collecting the beans (along with the feces) which take on wonderful flavors because of fermentation in the digestive tract. Sadly, tracking down civet coffee in Los Angeles is highly difficult; and wild civets are hard to come by. Which is why I had the bright idea of feeding coffee beans to my cat, Lolita Roberts-Johnson, to see if I could make Kopi Luwak here at home.

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The Case of the Cat and the Water Glass

In the middle of the night, a few weeks ago, I heard a noise that sounded like the sound you make when you’re licking your chops after eating a big piece of cake. Only the chop-licking wasn’t chop-licking, it was water-lapping and it was happening on my nightstand at 3:30 in the morning. Lolita, everyone’s favorite cat, has gotten into the habit of drinking out of our water glasses, so much so that now it’s almost an addiction. I have to sleep with my arm extended outwards to block her path. Sometimes she ignores the arm and still makes a lunge for the water; when I lift her away, she gives an angry “meow.” What’s got into my cat?

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