Cautionary “Tail” About Smalls Cat Food

March 2, 2026

By Karen

We cat lovers want our cats eating high-quality food so they live nine long and healthy lives. That’s what made me scope out Smalls Human-Grade cat food.

[Disclaimer: My intent is not to impugn or disparage Smalls’ products. Cats Working has neither touched nor tasted them. I’m sharing my experience with only their marketing.]

Image
Max as a kitten

I first saw Smalls a few years ago on Instagram, and rejected it then as too expensive.

But lately we’ve been upgrading, switching from Fancy Feast to Blue dry food. So, when I saw Smalls advertise on TV while my laptop was open, I thought, “Maybe I should check this out again,” breaking my cardinal rule about nighttime internet use, which is…

NEVER EXPLORE ONLINE SHOPPING OPPORTUNITIES WHILE DISTRACTED (or having a martini).

The site asked basic questions about all four cats: age, breed, body type, food preferences.

Then it offered a customized $52 “sample pack.” But wait! You’re in luck. It’s 50% off. So, $26 for the samples.

For a gourmet meal for four, that sounded reasonable, so I entered my credit card info.

GOTCHA!!

I was automatically subscribed to four meal plans Smalls formulated without even divulging how much lobster and caviar they contained, which they must have, because they cost $179.

A WEEK

That’s $776 a month. For cat food.

In a panic, the only ways I could find to reverse this catastrophic error were to call a number or email their “Cat Concierge.” Since it was late, I sent an email with the subject line “CANCEL.”

Image
Roc as a kitten

Then I went to bed to have nightmares of Max, Roc, Tony, and Tater sitting like fat cats around a sumptuous table groaning with platters of succulent human-grade proteins while I ate cold rice from a dirty bowl on the floor.

(Just kidding about the nightmare, but if Social Security is your main source of income, that’s not much of a stretch.)

Image
Tony as a kitten

Smalls drove Trump completely out of my head as my first horrible thought the next morning. Before coffee, I went back to that website. This time I scrolled all the way down and found a Cancel button, which I hit hard and hoped I did it in time.

Weirdly, I later found a message from the Cat Concierge on my business email account, but that’s not the address I gave Smalls. Here’s what it said:

Thanks for reaching out! I completely understand your concern about this. When you place your first order with Smalls, it also starts a recurring subscription that kicks off two weeks later. We include a note about this on the checkout screen, along with follow-up emails during your transition process, so it doesn’t come as a surprise.

If you’d like, I’m happy to help create a meal plan that better fits your needs. Subscriptions can always be adjusted with budget in mind. You can switch to our smallest box, space out shipments up to every 12 weeks, or postpone whenever needed. Smalls also works great as a topper. Our fresh food packets last up to a year in the freezer and 5 days in the fridge once thawed, so you can stretch one packet over multiple meals.

In the meantime, I see your Smalls subscription was canceled. If you ever want to give us another try or talk more about using Smalls as a supplement, I’d be glad to offer 25% off your first order back. Just let me know!

I could be wrong, and maybe I missed it, but if Smalls had shown the eye-popping cost of a subscription on the checkout screen BEFORE I confirmed the sample purchase, I would have canceled on the spot.

Image
Tater, as young as we ever knew her

When I canceled, it also canceled the sample, which I still would have liked to try. But apparently with Smalls you either take the whole enchilada or you get nothing.

Silly me thought I could see how the sample pack went over before committing to a subscription — BECAUSE CATS ARE NOTORIOUSLY FINICKY EATERS.

The concierge’s options seem to defeat the purpose of Smalls. What’s the point of skimping on the cats’ meals or mixing highly nutritious food with commercial junk? It’s like telling Trump he gets only one patty on his Big Mac, or swapping his pickles for broccoli.

Anyway, if anybody uses Smalls, I’d love to hear how your cats like it. And if you’ve been thinking about it, and you’ve got multiple cats, be warned that you may find yourself eating a lot more ramen noodles.

Image 11 Comments | Image Cats, Consumer Issues, Lifestyle | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Image Permalink
Image Posted by catsworking

How the USPS Instigates Revival of GOING POSTAL

February 9, 2026

By Karen

Trump hates mail-in voting, so he’s tried for years to destroy the U.S. Postal Service. Now, for the first time in my life, I know what living without the PO means, because…

MY MAIL HAS NOT BEEN DELIVERED SINCE JANUARY 24

My mail carrier has failed to show up 12 DAYS, and counting. (To be fair, I exclude Sundays).

It started January 24, when Richmond got snow, turning to sleet, then freezing rain. Two sunny subfreezing weeks followed, where daytime melting would refreeze at night to create increasingly thicker ice.

Main roads were passable within a few days. One side of my street got some sand, but not my side. Plows were useless; they couldn’t dent the ice. I didn’t try to get out for 10 days myself after falling backward dragging the trash bin to the curb (which then wasn’t picked up for another week).

I think schools were closed seven days. But even four days after abundantly cautious school buses resumed their routes, THE MAIL STILL DIDN’T COME.

Local news did a story on people trying to fetch their delinquent mail, because THEY could drive to the PO (irony intended). But postal workers said, “It’s out on the truck,” or “The back room is such a mess, we can’t find anything.”

A USPS spokesperson claimed their main concern was carriers’ safety. What they meant was, “Remember our slogan, ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds’? Yeah, no. Fuggeddaboudit. That’s all bullshit.”

I get a daily USPS email called Informed Delivery that sends photos of what may or may not arrive that day.

It’s 2025 tax season, so I see 1099s from my banks and clients (along with a real estate assessment and a client’s payment check). But God only knows where they are.

Normally, my carrier sometimes skips me three days. Usually, it’s no biggie because like most people, I went as paperless as possible when Trump installed that bastard Louis DeJoy over the USPS to sabotage the 2020 election. DeJoy ripped out mailboxes and sorting machines, did massive layoffs, raised prices repeatedly, and crippled what was left of the PO.

Image

[SIDENOTE: Louis DeJoy finally quit in 2025. I love Joe Biden, but if he and that useless milquetoast Merrick Garland had had the courage to take out the Trump trash, we’d all live in a different world today. DeJoy should have been prosecuted for interfering with the 2020 election and be rotting in prison today, not happily retired, enjoying the fruits of his malicious fuckery.]

Now, even though my street has been dry and clear for days and the mail carrier’s packing a 12-day backlog, nothing’s coming.

If normalcy ever returns, I expect epic misdeliveries causing more headaches. Before this, I’d get wrong mail almost once a week. What I fear is people won’t put misdeliveries back in their boxes, because some feckless shithead didn’t with my father’s original death certificate in a law firm envelope, which went missing in 2024. All I ever got was Informed Delivery’s photo of it.

Worst case, the PO catches up by throwing away the backlog. It’s happened before.

February 16 is Presidents Day, a federal holiday. I sure hope the USPS doesn’t plan to close with piles of very late mail sitting around. But if they do, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone who can’t file their 2025 taxes or has run out of their mail-order anti-psychotic meds revives that custom we haven’t seen lately. It’s called GOING POSTAL.

FEBRUARY 9 UPDATE: Thankfully, all the overdue mail showed up today, with no misdeliveries. Now I can do my taxes. Postal workers must really, REALLY want Presidents Day off next week after the two-week vacation they just took.

Image 6 Comments | Image American politics, Consumer Issues, Lifestyle, Weather | Tagged: , , , , | Image Permalink
Image Posted by catsworking

Cats Working at Christmas 2025

December 23, 2025

By Karen

We’re low key this year. In lieu of the tree, I hung ALL the kitties’ stockings and realized only my original four (down the stairs from top, Coco, Cleo, Rex, and Ginger) weren’t Cats Working. If you’ve been a longtime reader, you’ll remember the late Fred, Yul, Adele, and Cole. They all loved Christmas…

Image

The present crew’s stockings are on the fireplace, whose mantle is lopsided because a friend who’s a dog person gave me a Christmas planter that for the cats is poisonous and edible (but pukable). Having no cat-proof inch in the house to put it anywhere else (not even the top of the fridge), I barricaded it, while leaving Max’s path of descent from his bookcases open…

Image

I wasn’t able to put up the tree because in March I inherited my parents’ massive roll-top desk, which caused a Christmas turf war. You can see what I mean, compared to last year’s tree placement…

Image

If I can’t figure out another spot for that lovely 8’ tree, I’ll have to get a smaller one next year.

Speaking of Christmas trees, I almost missed getting my Fancy Feast ornament. In November, when I realized I hadn’t seen an ad this year, I discovered it had been promoted — but only on Facebook. And it was already sold out! The Facebook post was loaded with complaints about that.

Like any good Karen, I bypassed useless kvetching on fucking Facebook and went straight to Purina. As an outraged collector of their damn Fancy Feast ornaments since the mid-‘80s, I demanded to know what marketing genius thought hiding it on Facebook was a good idea.

In response, they apologized for my inconvenience and sent me an ornament from their “private stock.” So, my collection continues. I must say, putting this year’s ornament only on Facebook should get somebody at Purina fired because it’s stunning. It looks like crystal and comes in a green velvet box like a Crown jewel…

Image

One morning recently, the cats’ “Secret Santa” dropped off a Rescue Box of treats and toys. Proceeds go to help kitties in need. It’s going to be their Christmas morning surprise…

Image

You’ll notice Tony legs in that photo, but rest assured he doesn’t realize the box is his. Connecting dots is not his strong suit. Now, I’ll tell you how Tony got a “poodle leg”…

Image

In October at his annual checkup, Tony received the bad news that he needed his teeth cleaned, and he had it done December 3. It was the first time I’ve ever had to leave him anywhere, so it must have been scary. He threw up on the drive over. He’s still pissed his leg was shaved. The first few days he was home, he was missing all his jumps and falling backward as if his balance was off.

The good news is that his teeth were just dirty, but otherwise fine. (He has some gingivitis.) The vet found an extra little fang on the top and bottom, and a tooth Tony should have on the bottom may have never grown in. Here’s his mouth. His teeth are actually white. The vet apologized that his printer made them yellow…

Image

Max would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. This photo is from 2022, but I don’t think I could do any better with him today…

Image

I tried to get Roc into the Santa spirit this year, and here’s how that went…

Image

And Tony…

Image

Tater was having none of it, and wouldn’t even allow a regular photo, so here’s one from Christmas 2019 when she lived with my parents…

Image

The cats and I hope you and yours have beautiful holidays, and thank you for staying with us.

Image 5 Comments | Image Cats, Lifestyle | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Image Permalink
Image Posted by catsworking

Virginia FINALLY Secedes from the Confederacy

November 5, 2025

By Karen

Historically, I’ve heard crickets when I’ve written about politics here, and it’s another reason I haven’t posted much lately. I actually spend (too many) hours every day following Trump’s treachery and searching for signs of his inevitable collapse because I don’t feel as if I can breathe easy again until he stops.

But you know what? Fuck it. Today I’m writing for the crickets. Virginia just did the most amazing thing in my 53 long years here and I can’t NOT talk about it.

Yesterday, November 4, we had an election for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and all 100 seats in the House of Delegates of the General Assembly (our state-level Congress). Both houses of the General Assembly already had small Democratic majorities, but the top three jobs were in MAGA hands.

I’m thrilled to say that for the first time since 1972, I voted a straight Democratic ticket and all four of my candidates WON!

Democrats’ wins were also historic. Abigail Spanberger, former CIA agent and Congresswoman, is the first female governor in Virginia. Lieutenant Governor Ghazala Hashmi is the first Muslim ever elected to statewide office in the U.S., and Jay Jones the first Black attorney general in Virginia.

Image

(For the record, I’m in House District 73. My fourth candidate was Democrat Leslie Mehta, who knocked out Republican Mark Earley after only one term, rounded to 52-48%.)

Image

With Jones, I believe after early voting had already begun, Republicans pulled their usual shit. They revealed some stupid old texts from when Jones served in the House of Delegates. He idiotically joked about shooting the former speaker (who WAS a dick) to his Republican colleague Carrie Coyner. Coyner saved the texts for a chance to stab Jones in the back because MAGAs love kompromat. They also dug up an old speeding conviction where Jones was clocked doing 116 m.p.h.

So, it was touch and go for Jones, but he managed to pull off a win (53-47%) despite his immaturity. And because Karma’s a bitch with a sense of irony, Coyner’s duplicity LOST her her seat in the House by the same 53-47% margin.

Wins by Spanberger (57-42%) and Hashmi (55-45%) always looked fairly certain because Spanberger’s opponent was screeching harpy Winsome Earle-Sears, our current not-too-bright Trump-worshipping lieutenant governor, though Trump never specifically endorsed her. Maybe this campaign photo of her explains why…

Image

Earle-Sears ran mainly on keeping trans girls out of restrooms. Sure, that’s what we’re all worried about, with prices for everything crazy-expensive, hospitals closing, people starving, and Trump’s roving gangs of masked goons attacking, tear-gassing and kidnapping everyone they fancy.

Hashmi’s opponent was a gay man who was probably the most reasonable person on the Republican ticket. Had they prevailed, Earle-Sears would probably have tried to fire him because she buys into Trump’s ultimate power schtick, and as a “devout Christian,” she doesn’t believe anyone LGBTQIA+ deserves to exist.

So, this former capital of the Confederacy, which has already progressed as the only southern state not to ban abortion, though Youngkin tried, and removed most of the Confederate statues, has made a clean break with stupidity. Backwardness does exist in rural areas where people still love Trump, even though his demented bullshit is closing their hospitals, destroying their farms, and making life generally too expensive to survive. But blue Virginia can now stand proudly with the other sane states Trump hates.

I woke up this morning feeling happy. Trump may squat in what he’s left of the White House, but I feel Virginia now has a buffer against his evil. I hope what the country saw here and in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, New York City, and other states motivates us all to keep up the fight and not lose hope. That fucker can’t live forever. His corrupt, incompetent toadies have nowhere to hide without him. And we outnumber them by millions.

Image 6 Comments | Image American politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Image Permalink
Image Posted by catsworking

NEW BOOK: The Anthony Bourdain Reader

October 31, 2025

By Karen

Guilt hangs over me every waking moment for neglecting this blog so terribly.

I’m STILL churning the cat pee post. Tater and Tony had no incidents in over a month, and I thought it was time to tell you how and why, but just this morning I found “something” on the slate hearth. I’m not sure exactly what it was, or who did it, but it was wet.

Other than my own procrastination, rest assured there’s nothing bad happening at Cats Working that’s keeping me from the keyboard. In fact, I’m preparing to dive into a major rewrite on my novel about people on a cruise. It happened so many years ago, it’s become a period piece like Ship of Fools because cruise ships have become almost unrecognizable as ships. (Katherine Anne Porter once came to speak at the University of Richmond while I was there, and I got within 3 feet of her. She was white-haired, tiny, and wore pink.)

My book has always felt like THE one I MUST write in this life. Its tentative title is Once, Upon a Ship. But I’ve digressed.

I don’t recall how I got wind of The Anthony Bourdain Reader because I haven’t seen a word of hype, but it’s the brainchild of his literary agent, Kim Witherspoon. She combed through his body of published and unpublished writing and compiled what is best described as a textbook for possible future college courses devoted to Bourdainia.

Image

When the Amazon box hit my doorstep, I was surprised by its heft. It’s 488 pages published under the Ecco imprint of HarperCollins, Bourdain’s old stomping ground. Its cloth cover and titles in what looks like the old monospaced Courier font reminds me of old schoolbooks and typewriters.

But let’s face it, since Tony’s no longer generating new material, we have all become Bourdain scholars, studying what he left behind. Here’s just a sample from the table of contents.

Image

I haven’t begun reading yet, but just flipping through, I see quite a few never-published pieces, belying Tony’s claim (boast?) that he never wrote anything unless it was for publication. I also see excerpts from his lesser known books you may not have read, like Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical (my copy the last book he ever autographed for me).

The oldest piece I see is from 1984, when he would have been 28, over a decade before fame found him, but some pieces have dates unknown, so could go back even further.

Anyway, I wanted to get this out quickly to 1) Keep the Bourdain record at Cats Working as complete as possible, and 2) Let know you this amazing book exists. It looks well worth having if you’re still interested.

In the aknowledgments, Witherspoon thanks Ottavia and Ariane for their “trust and clarity,” and Laurie Woolever for reading the draft, among others.

BONUS: Remember when Tony and Eric Ripert went to Peru and ended up getting into the candy business? It was 2012, and their $18 Good & Evil chocolate bars sold for a limited time. The price was too rich for me, so I never tried one. I also never heard what went into their production, but Ian Fortey at Tasting Table tells the story.

Image

PS: I’m searching for a Bourdain quote where he talked about how travel should change you. I want to use it at the front of my book because it encapsulates my theme. I don’t remember if he said it or wrote it, but if anyone remembers what I’m talking about and puts it in the comments, I’ll know it when I see it. I’d really appreciate your help on this!

Image 8 Comments | Image Books, Bourdain, Consumer Issues, Writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Image Permalink
Image Posted by catsworking

Happy 10th Birthday, Roc!

September 1, 2025

By Karen

I can’t believe an entire DECADE has passed since Roc (a.k.a. RockyMan, which he’s most likely to answer to) came to live with us.

Image
Roc living dangerously; that’s Tater’s favorite mouse toy he’s posing with

Today is his big day, and since it happens to be Labor Day, maybe he’ll get fireworks tonight.

Otherwise, we’re keeping it low key. Since they’ve got every toy known to cats and a smorgasbord of half a dozen treat varieties, at a minimum, in their food puzzle every day (more on that later), you could say Roc’s a lucky cat who has it all. He’s even shacked up with his girlfriend, Tater Tot, and she occasionally allows him a nose boop.

Image

So, tonight I’ll make us Roc’s favorite dinner — shrimp — and crack open some cans of Fancy Feast I save for special occasions for Tony and Tater, and we’ll call that a birthday bash. (Max only eats dry food.)

Roc really is our rock. He’s the only cat who meshes with everyone. But power sometimes goes to his head and he becomes a bully. Tony takes it as an invitation to wrestle. Max recoils from the unnecessary roughness. Tater turns into a hissy shrew.

Rereading my first post on Roc’s arrival as a kitten (link above), I see that I mentioned him biting. He grew out of it for some years, but now it’s his worst habit. He bites me constantly, and will bite Max. Not in anger or to break the skin, but hard enough to be a pest and sometimes leaves bruises. I can tell him 1,000 times to cut it out, and he always looks surprised.

On the other hand, no cat is more affectionate. If I lie down on the couch for a nap, Roc appears from wherever he’s been to flop down beside me. He’s usually got me within his sights. Right now he’s napping on the perch behind my computer.

Image
These pics were taken this morning. I gave Roc a safe communal mouse before Tater caught him with hers

Roc and Tony are pals, but Roc and Max are cuddle buddies. Whenever Max comes down from the bookcases to watch TV, Roc and he will groom each other and snuggle like an old gay couple — until Roc bites Max.

Roc, thankfully, has remained neutral in Tony and Tater’s pee war. (As I was about to tell you all about their miraculous détente, they relapsed. But we’re back on track again and it’s a useful story that includes the treat puzzle and much more, so stay tuned.)

Even at 10, Roc’s still a kitten at heart. He loves to romp and play with stick toys and Tony.

Image

So, Happy Birthday to my RockyMan. I hope we have many more together!

Image 7 Comments | Image Animals, Cats, Lifestyle | Tagged: , , | Image Permalink
Image Posted by catsworking

Book Review: Zamir Gotta’s ‘The Fixer and the Chef’

July 7, 2025

By Karen

[First, my thanks to Cats Working reader Stephanie Pyrzynski for alerting me that this book exists. It’s available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle.]

Anthony Bourdain’s zany Russian sidekick Zamir has independently published a memoir (available online via print-on-demand, not in bookstores) called The Fixer and the Chef: My Adventures With and Without Anthony Bourdain.

Image

Physically, it’s a respectable hardcover with professional photography and well-written cover copy. The interior layout falls a bit short, though readable, with narrow margins and clunky justification in spots. At only 183 pages, it packs a lot of story into a deceptively thin volume.

But I nitpick.

Zamir says Bourdain began urging him in 2011 to write his remarkable life story. His childhood in the Soviet Union was filled with dire deprivation and squalor, which made me feel almost ashamed that I ever laughed at how communism was mocked in the movies Ninotchka with Greta Garbo…

Image

And its musical remake Silk Stockings (this French poster captures the Soviet angle best)…

Image

Zamir spares no ugly details in the first 89 pages, mentioning Bourdain several times in passing as he describes how he grew into a fixer. He was an A-list wheeler-dealer long before a relative nobody from Food Network ever pinged his radar. He’d already chalked up Billy Crystal and Ted Koppel, to drop a few names. Zamir was even an associate producer on Tilda Swinton’s Oscar-nominated film, Orlando, although his name was strangely omitted from the credits.

Zamir thoroughly disabuses the reader of any notion that Anthony Bourdain ever plucked Zamir from obscurity like any rando Russian.

Their adventures together begin when “Two Odd Guys Meet” in Chapter 5 on page 90.

Disregarding any negative connotations of the word, I’d describe Zamir as an opportunist. He’s someone who, in seeking workarounds to communism’s mandatory poverty, learned how to remove the peel from a single grape and turn it into a bottle of champagne — with a side of caviar and blinis.

It all began when Tony’s production company ZPZ recruited Zamir to help film two episodes of A Cook’s Tour. That relationship lasted and spanned 10 episodes over Tony’s three travel series.

[NOTE TO ZAMIR: If you’re reading this, despite your stern warning about reproducing “no part of this book” without permission, I’m quoting you. It’s called “fair use.”]

Zamir recalls his first impression upon meeting Bourdain…

“A Bohemian figure, slim and tall, dripping with charisma. He wore a thick silver thumb ring and a hoop earring. The jewelry looked uncomfortable. In my preconception, he was too tall and too thin to be a chef.”

“Dripping with charisma?” Maybe to a Russian he was. But in the handful of encounters I had with Tony some years later, I found him diffident, almost shy.

Readers know I’m always on the lookout for the ever-elusive Nancy. Zamir gives her a cameo, accompanying Tony…

“Nancy was tall and quiet. She made me think of what an American hippie might look like. She was nice, but never said much.”

During that first Cook’s Tour shoot, Zamir says Tony asked him to co-host.

Hmm… To verify, I just rewatched that episode. Zamir spoke very little, so “co-host” is a bit of a stretch. His role definitely grew over time as his antics became well-loved comic relief.

Tony might describe Zamir as an acquired taste that’s best enjoyed with the proverbial grain of salt.

The episode I was most eager to read about was Romania but, alas, Zamir mentions it only to say that Tony was annoyed by all the toasting.

After many hours spent talking and drinking, Zamir says he and Tony became friends, then confidants. Tony featured Zamir in the No Reservations Rust Belt episode to show him how destructive unbridled capitalism can be. The upside was that Zamir found a cadre of his own fans and fell in love with Buffalo, NY, which led to him producing Zamir Vodka.

At that time, Bourdain was in the throes of the Bourdain Market deal on Pier 57 in Manhattan that ultimately fell through. He promised Zamir that if his vodka wasn’t shit, it would be sold there. Losing that endorsement and distribution outlet was a huge disappointment and setback for the product.

Zamir’s final episode with Tony was in the country of Georgia for Parts Unknown, wrapping in November 2015. They never saw each other again. In early 2016, Tony went to Rome and met the skank, and you know the rest.

Zamir has a burning desire to honor Bourdain as a globe-trotting peacemaker, because making peace within his family was his role as a child, and became his most marketable skill.

When the news of Tony’s death broke, Zamir shared the shock we all felt…

“When I first learned of Tony’s death on the train from Buffalo to New York in June 2018, it felt like all things fell apart and the center could not hold.”

He found ways to move on, but suffered another unimaginable loss when his son Anton died by suicide in 2022.

If you’re still hungry for more about Anthony Bourdain, I heartily recommend The Fixer and the Chef as an entertaining read. It doesn’t have any new answers, but Zamir does share a wealth of insight into the brutal oppression and corruption of Soviet Russia that Putin misses so much.

Zamir’s collaborator was Miriam Margala, Ph.D., a Czech writer and lecturer who specializes in linguistics, philosophy, and academic writing.

Had the book been traditionally published, it would have benefited from having a native English-speaking copy and line editor, who would have smoothed rough spots in grammar and punctuation, and caught factual discrepancies, such as Zamir’s father being 15 when he enlisted in the Russian Army on page 7, but 16 when it’s repeated on page 12.

I know Zamir must feel elated to have his story finally out in tangible form. If Tony were alive, he’d have written a killer foreword, ensured top-notch production and publication, probably under his Ecco imprint, and made it a bestseller.

BONUS: A few other Bourdain bits I’ve collected…

Tony the movie: It’s set in Provincetown during the summer of 1976 when Bourdain first entered restaurant kitchen life. Emilia Jones is the only female cast I’ve seen.

Image

Connecting dots out of nothing, I’m guessing she plays young Nancy.

Another cast member is Antonio Banderas, who may be one of Tony’s chef mentors. I have no idea which one.

Filming is now underway in Massachusetts. Seeing some photos of Dominic Sessa as young Tony, I think if he gets the swagger down, shadowed by shyness, he’s got the character nailed.

Image

Here are a few more shots of him. And here’s another batch of photos from the Daily Mail, which calls the film a “chilling” biopic for some reason.

Get Jiro! animated series: This is also in production. According to Variety, it “welcomes the audience into a world where people will literally kill themselves to get into good restaurants.”

Image

“The only thing they actually enjoy anymore is eating, so chefs in the future have the most power. They’re like influencers, warlords and drug dealers — all the good things together,” said Peter Girardi, EVP at Warner Bros. Animation at an Annecy Festival presentation.

The article says the series will introduce a new catchphrase. The guess: “No soy sauce!”

No date for airing, but it will be during the Adult Swim block of mature programming at night on the Cartoon Network.

Image 5 Comments | Image Books, Bourdain, Entertainment, Film, Food, International Politics, Travel, TV | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Image Permalink
Image Posted by catsworking

Happy 6th Birthday, Tony B.

June 6, 2025

By Karen

Hard to believe that our “wild child” Tony Bourdain (the cat) turns 6 years old today. Seems only yesterday that he was the “new kid” bouncing all over the house.

Image

Here he is, trying to see if wrapping his tail around his legs can make him pass as a tuxedo cat like Max.

Our birthday celebration will be low-key, maybe some bacon later. Tony also likes bran flakes and potato chips. Go figure. He’s into pork chops, too. Come to think of it, I’m thawing a chop for dinner tonight, so we’ll share that.

I apologize to anyone who’s still reading for neglecting the blog, but I’ve been struggling a bit lately. I’m retired now, which has been a major adjustment in my routine. It’s a relief and freer time that I still haven’t fully wrapped my head around.

And as you know, both my parents died, my sister moved to Portugal in March, and I find myself for the first time in my life with all this free time and no family. I never thought I’d hit 70 and be this alone. I’ve been reading a lot. Right now, it’s Molly Jong-Fast’s memoir, How to Lose Your Mother. My mother wasn’t famous, but she and Erica Jong had a lot of similar personality traits.

Image

This week I bought a new cremation preneed plan with Richmond’s most reputable, venerated funeral home (for triple what my parents paid the Cremation Society of Virginia to end up God-knows-where). My ashes will be mailed in an oversized Pringles can to New England, where a third cousin has agreed to scatter me. If I never take another vacation, at least knowing I’ll eventually escape the South and end up back home is something to look forward to.

I’m also in the process of shifting my trust, will, advance directive and all that jazz to friends and charity, since there’s no next of kin on this continent. It’s a big binder to slog through, full of depressing, mostly irrelevant, boilerplate paperwork from the lawyer, requiring compilation of many lists about all my earthly doings.

I hope once I get through organizing and sorting out my death, I’ll be able to refocus on life.

Meanwhile, we’re still in the trenches of the pissing contest between Tony and Tater Tot. It’s two steps forward, one step back, but we’re slowly getting drier. I’ll have more to say on that, in hopes my experiments in cat psychology can help someone else.

Speaking of dry, this is the longest writing dry spell I’ve ever had. On the other hand, I’ve remained prolific with short political snark as Cats Working on Bluesky, where I have 2,500+ followers. I spend way too much time ruminating on Trump’s endless fuckery.

But today, I couldn’t let this blog fail to wish my feisty little Tony a Happy Birthday and many more, even if some days he is more squirt gun than cat!

Image 10 Comments | Image Books, Cats | Tagged: , , , , | Image Permalink
Image Posted by catsworking

Happy Birthday, Ariane Bourdain and Max

April 9, 2025

By Karen

Our Max turns 14 today. He’s still living his best life on top of the living room bookcases. A few months ago, he began refusing to come down even for water. So he wouldn’t dehydrate, I had to put a water bowl up there. Now, he drinks more than ever. And did I mention Max really, REALLY hates being photographed?

Image

[Maybe Max’s sour look was sour stomach. He puked a big hairball in his bed as I was writing this.]

Only recently did I realize (or remember) that Max and Anthony Bourdain’s daughter Ariane have the same birthday.

Ariane is 18. Can you believe it? Now I feel really old.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ARIANE!

[FYI: April 8 was Nancy Bourdain’s birthday, Tony’s first wife. Ariane’s mother Ottavia’s birthday is April 28.]

My first mention of Ariane here was January 2008, when I suspected she had a cameo in a stroller in a Greece episode of No Reservations. I don’t believe that sighting was ever confirmed.

Apparently that’s about when I noticed how Bourdain kept his professional and personal lives completely separate and began trying to connect dots. This led to Ottavia finding Cats Working and alerting Tony, which led to him writing me a letter to set me straight on some things, and my eventually meeting them both, along with some of my readers.

[This whole story is in the archives.]

But back to Ariane. In February 2008, I had my first verified sighting of baby Ariane when I found an interview her proud father had done with 60 Minutes a few months earlier. It included a photo of Bourdain holding Ariane in one hand like a meatloaf. [Unfortunately, the link in the post to that interview and photo has gone dead.]

The Bourdains were always careful to keep young Ariane’s face hidden to protect her privacy, right up until she appeared in Tony’s last cookbook, Appetites, in 2016, when she was about 9.

Image

We saw Ariane a bit in 2021 in the documentary Roadrunner, particularly in that she got her father’s height.

Ariane, I don’t know if you’ll ever see this, but you’ve always had some doting “alternative Italian grandmothers” here at Cats Working who have loved you and your family your whole life and wish you all the best in your next chapter, wherever it takes you.

I think if your father were still with us, he’d be proudly warning chefs who might want to date you that you’re a [insert color here] belt in jiujitsu and have knife skills they could only dream of.

In other news, a few little Bourdain UPDATES…

Ottavia and I have fallen out of touch, but in one of our last exchanges, she told me she caught COVID in March 2020, just before it got serious enough for the country to lock down.

She had just gotten her EMT license, but COVID derailed her plans to be a volunteer. And her MMA partner Eddie Cummings had gone back to school to get a master’s in applied mathematics, with plans for a Ph.D.

Reading Laurie Woolever’s book Care and Feeding got me wondering if Ottavia and Eddie ever married.

I couldn’t find that, but they were still together as “Edward Cummings and Ottavia Busia Bourdain” on a donors’ list in the December 2024 annual report of a private school in New York City. I’m redacting its name because I assume Ariane is in her senior year there and she’s managed to keep it confidential this long.

Ottavia told me that in addition to music, Ariane paints and is a “great writer.” Of course, being a writer myself, I hope one day Ariane may continue the Bourdain literary tradition with her own stories.

Back to Ottavia, I came across an undated (but probably 2020) post she wrote on Reddit about her decision to give up jiujitsu and return to school [September 2019?]. Since it’s on social media, I’ll share a bit here…

“Now that I am on the outside, I look back and I almost feel like I escaped a cult. I made so many sacrifices, including completely destroying my body, ‘for the team,’ ‘for the family,’ that I’m often left wondering, what was I thinking? I had completely lost myself.”

She talked about feeling she was under a lot of pressure to prove herself, but it’s unclear if she was referring to being “outed” as an MMA practitioner on Bourdain’s shows. I assume she was…

“I think my situation was made worse by the fact that I had been undeservedly thrown under the spotlight since I was a white belt. And it had nothing to do with my Jiujitsu ability, so I always felt this pressure to prove myself.”

The sport took a toll on her body…

“I tore both my ACLs, in addition to all the other ligaments in my knees multiple times; I tore the labrum in both my shoulders and hips; I had a hamstring avulsion…. Unfortunately there are many lingering issues. I hate to admit that my orthopedist was right about everything.”

This makes me wonder if Ottavia stuck with jiujitsu after she felt burned out just to keep Bourdain from looking foolish for becoming obsessed with it in his late 50s (although it did get him into possibly the best shape of his life).

In a roundabout final note, Twitter reinstated Cats Working after suspending me for life in 2020 when I wished Trump tar and feathers for Christmas. I appealed many times to no avail, but once Elon bought it, I started demanding they delete the account. This resulted in Twitter recently doing this…

Image

It enabled me to check Ottavia’s account and learn she’s now involved in cancer research and co-authoring papers. So, kudos to Ottavia! I hope Trump and Elon’s fuckery with cutting grants doesn’t destroy her work.

I’ve hit a wall with Eddie, but news about his MMA exploits seems to stop around the time he returned to school, so I’m guessing he’s working on that Ph.D. or enjoying a professional career that mathematically challenged I could never begin to understand.

Image 5 Comments | Image Bourdain, Cats, Healthcare, Lifestyle, TV | Tagged: , , , , | Image Permalink
Image Posted by catsworking

Book Review: Care and Feeding

March 21, 2025

By Karen

Anthony Bourdain’s assistant Laurie Woolever, who’s now 50, has published a memoir, Care and Feeding.

After leaving upstate New York for the Big City in search of adventure, she completed culinary school in her early 20s, which gave her the chops to become Chef Mario Batali’s personal assistant, which then led to nine years with Bourdain, who always called himself Tony, she says.

Image

Under Batali, she went instantly from nobody to someone who encountered celebrities like Julia Child and Martha Stewart for a living. She wrote: “I wanted to try living my life like a country song: drunk, immune to logic, impulsive, corny, lonely, and rooting around in bad places for something that could pass for love.” (p. 63) She found Batali’s restaurant Babbo to be the perfect place to get drunk, high and laid.

If you buy this book for the Bourdain story, you’ll wait until page 65 for the first glimpse. While working for Batali, Woolever had a dinner date at Les Halles and her companion mentioned that the chef just had a “really good, really funny essay about restaurant life in the New Yorker.”

As Tony’s wife Ottavia once told me she did because every restaurant worker in New York was doing it, Woolever read that essay’s ensuing book, Kitchen Confidential, in a day and a half. She was “enchanted and deeply envious of Bourdain’s compelling, assured, and hilarious writing.”

Woolever wanted to be a food writer, so Batali hooked her up with editors who gave her freelance magazine assignments. Batali also suggested that she apply to help Bourdain finish his Les Halles Cookbook, published in 2004.

When they met, Woolever was charmed by “his slight, endearing awkwardness.” (p. 98)

Although Bourdain didn’t give her cover credit on the cookbook, she led his acknowledgments, where he wrote:

“First and foremost to Laurie Woolever, who translated and scaled down the recipes from their original garbled, inscrutable, food-stained form; acted as intermediary between two difficult, distracted, and very busy authors; personally wrangled all the ingredients; tested all the recipes; and in every way behaved like the lone professional in a monkey house. The book could never have been done without her.”

While working on it, Woolever briefly met Tony’s wife Nancy, describing her as “slim and elegant-looking.” (p. 117) Nancy was on the floor, wearing elbow-length leather gloves, wrestling a cat named Molly.

I cite this only for contrast; Woolever never mentions meeting Ottavia, or even says her name.

Then in her acknowledgments, Woolever thanks Nancy, but not Ottavia. This makes me try to connect dots. Could it reflect lingering annoyance over Woolever’s unavoidable role in facilitating Tony’s doomed romance with the skank? [Cats Working readers know who the skank is; we redact in case she Googles herself] Or more probably, is it just Ottavia living a private life and avoiding Bourdain-related projects?

But on a third hand, as hard as Woolever beats herself up, could SHE feel guilty about the Tony-skank debacle and not want to remind Ottavia?

Which leads me to the difference in how Woolever presents Batali as a fully formed character, while Bourdain, except in a couple of scenes, like in his apartment with Nancy, seems almost a shadow figure.

One explanation is that she worked at Babbo with Batali around, while most of her dealings with Bourdain were virtual, with relatively little face time. Indeed, they didn’t have enough contact for Tony to realize she was a promiscuous drunk and drug user, despite being married and a mother.

The skank doesn’t show up until page 252, where she’s called only “his new girlfriend.” But Woolever confirms that it was the skank who “insisted” Tony leak to the New York Post that he’d separated from Ottavia.

The skank only becomes Asia when she and Tony become ensnared in #MeToo (p. 283) and Batali gets outed as a sexual predator.

Oddly, Chapter 28 is titled “Asia” (p. 289), but it’s unclear if Woolever means the woman or the continent, because the chapter isn’t much about the skank.

Bourdain invited Woolever accompany him on her choice of one shoot a year, and in 2017 she chose the infamous Hong Kong filming, where Tony hired the skank to direct. It was holy hell and Tony fired his longtime cameraman after the skank shrieked, “It’s him or me!” However, Woolever kept her distance, instead getting the details from the shell-shocked crew.

Woolever uses the skank’s full name only once on page 305 when the Daily Mail published photos of the skank cavorting around Rome with another man, which caused Bourdain endless long-distance arguments while filming in Strasbourg, France.

However, Bourdain was also telling Woolever to make appointments for his return to New York and texted, “I’ll live, and we’ll survive.” (p. 306)

This adds one more testimony that Bourdain’s death was the impulse of a moment whose vast implications he could never have imagined.

Woolever attended a showing of Bourdain’s final Parts Unknown episode about the Lower East Side. She writes (p. 316):

“With four months’ hindsight, I could see exhaustion and pain in his face, and I wondered how we all could have missed that pain, and what, if anything, we could have done about it.”

Woolever went on to finish the book they started together, World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, under his name, and compiled Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography under her name, both published in 2021.

And now we have this memoir.

Considering her position, Woolever’s contribution to Anthony Bourdain’s history is another missing piece filled in. But it’s not a book ABOUT him. In an interview with Eater, Woolever said she didn’t try to write another book about Bourdain because she’d already done it with the Oral History.

For a more potent Bourdain fix, I’d steer you to Tom Vitale’s In the Weeds (also published in 2021). Vitale makes Bourdain vividly live again for as long as the book takes you to read.

Critiquing Care and Feeding as a memoir, the title makes no sense to me, even with her explanation. And I found it hard to imagine she managed to hide what a hot mess she was from everyone, including Bourdain. Her relentless, prodigious self-destruction over many years becomes so exhausting, you wonder how she’s still alive.

But Woolever deserves huge credit for having the guts to put herself out there in the worst possible light. I hope it’s been cathartic.

Published like Bourdains’ books by Ecco, Care and Feeding physically has the distinctive Bourdain “look,” but this time his name’s on the cover purely for marketing, and it’s UNDER Woolever’s name in much smaller type.

I think Tony would be proud of her.

Image 14 Comments | Image Books, Bourdain, Travel, TV | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Image Permalink
Image Posted by catsworking

« Previous Entries
Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started