Are You A Good Cook? Ask My Dogs!

Once my chef in Rialto came up with a new dish for the staff meal. "Nice?" he asked.

"Good. But let me take back some and let Kamlette try. If she likes it, 100 marks for you", I smiled.

You see, Kamlette, my mixed Golden Retriever, is quite a connoiseur of food! Her acute sense of taste and smell is excellent. Dogs always have great sensitivity in taste and smell. I am sure my readers will endorse that, but Kamlette is very special. Of course, I try to restrict her to her healthy, appropriate, doggy food but once in a while, I would give her little treats. I began to realise she was picky. She would only eat the tasty ones. She had turned down food that was tasteless and "not up to her standard, doggy style." Kamlette loved durians, but not those of inferior quality. She once spat out a piece of not so ripe durian!
"Won't she get heaty and have sore throat?" my friends asked. "After the durian, I give her some honey water to drink to balance the heat effect of durians", I replied to the amusement of my friends.

My rough collie, Kambobo, was another connoiseur. However, unlike Kamlette, he was a British snob .....he would curl his nose and twist his jaws when you let him smell some durians. His favourite was Sobe Soya Milk. Once I gave him another brand of soya milk, and he refused to drink! Just to test him, I put two bowls of different soya milk.....he licked dry the bowl of Sobe Soya Milk! I wrote to the Manufacturer and asked if Sobe Soya Milk would like to use Bobo for their advdertisement! Would surely sell like hot milk!!!

When I was living around Killiney Road, I became very fond of the stray dog adopted by Mr. Chiam of Mitre Hotel. His name was Orbit. Every now and then, I would give Orbit some food from the restaurant....his favourite being lamb shank bones, etc.
However, Orbit was very shy, perhaps overly cautious as would be the normal approach of most strays in their instinct for survival. However, he would respond when I called out to him, but I must move away from the food before he would eat them. Once my staff, Amu and I gave him some food staff food cooked by the chef. To our shock and amusement, Orbit sniffed at the food. He did not eat the food, and instead lifted his hind leg and urinated on the food!! That day, the chef must have been in his less than good mood. There was a lot of left over because the food was not tasty. Without a shadow of a doubt, Orbit had confirmed the standard of the cooking!

Ah! Dogs! If only we could use them as food tasters and not only drug detectors! Would Dr. Tay or some Food Writers from the Straits Times and New Paper bring my dogs along for their food tasting? :-)

Bon Appetit!!

Gan Chau