The hungry dog's hungry dog

As you might have guessed from the title of this silly thing, in addition to just being a hungry person who likes to cook, eat, and think about food, I also have a hungry dog that lives in my home.

My dog likes to eat almost everything. Sometimes I share my breakfast with her. Usually I eat yogurt (which, P.S., I hate, but I have no breakfast ideas, since I really don't like breakfast but force myself to eat it), with raw almonds and fruit. Whatever the fruit is, the hungry dog gets a couple of bites. She will eat any fruit. She's very partial to apples and bananas, but I've seen her eat honeydew, cantaloup, pears, persimmons, peaches, kiwi, and oranges. When she was a puppy, she did not care for citrus, but like a human, as she grew up, she developed a taste for bitter and even sour things. Now she'll gobble an orange segment, no questions asked.

She also likes all raw vegetables, with the exception of lettuce and onions. When I'm chopping up veggies, she' s at my feet waiting for bits to drop. In fact, she knows that the phrase, "Uh oh" is usually accompanied by something falling to the floor, and if you say these words, she'll snap to attention and stare at your feet, prepared to dive for the lost bit of diced carrot.

The dog has been known to eat celery, zucchini, green beans, potatoes, and fennel, but her all-time favorite vegetable (I guess technically fruit) is the tomato. When she was a little puppy and I was living in the 'burbs, she would steal tomatoes from the garden. She'd bite into every single one, leave the green ones (too tart!) and take care of all the ripe, juicy red ones in a few quick bites.

And of course like any dog she likes cheese, peanut butter, and any kind of meat--especially roast chicken. She now recognizes the smell while it's roasting in the oven. If our oven door wasn't so incredibly dirty, I like to imagine her sitting in front of the oven, staring at the bird, quiet and still in its hot little box, getting crispy and delicious. It's no wonder why she likes it so much--it's one of the few non-produce items we cook that she actually gets to sample.

I like that I have a hungry dog. For one thing, she was real sick a few years ago, and we didn't know if she would live. The first sign of her being sick was that she didn't want to eat. But we were very, very lucky, and the vet fixed her up. So now, when I see my hungry dog, it fills me with joy, because I know she feels good.

Also, I like to think of her as my kid, to whom I've passed my food-loving genes. You might think I'm crazy, but me and my dog, we are connected. I'm sure we're a little bit the same even though we couldn't possible be. I do know if I were a dog, I'd be a hungry dog: I'd be her.