Night of the summer-solstice full moon in the Valley of the Moon . . . Dog bites of domestic, washed-rind cow's milk Muenster cheese accompanied by intense, fruity, young Sonoma Valley Cabernet sauvignon. <sigh> I got to taste only the cheese. But I hear that the bottle was a nice guerrilla vino from wine writer and former Gundlach-Bunschu guru Lance Cutler.

Many palate-educating and palate-educated humans and four-footeds have pawsed in areas around the Valley of the Moon. Jack London's dogs and the author himself pawsed to write his 1913 novel The Valley of the Moon. The late M.F.K. Fisher, author and esteemed pioneer of the culinary memoir, is perhaps the most cherished Valley human. She lived in Glen Ellen and liked cats, you know.

Fisher wrote about "receipts" a lot. That's old school for recipes. A very old term. For me, good recipes are woofable heaven. But my paw-point here is that, to recognize good recipes, you've got to have an educated palate. You get one by trying new things all the time. A young cat, says my vet Dr. Jordan, is very in need of having her pussin palate educated by eating a variety of foods. I think this applies to all of us, pets and people, but it's crucial for cats.

Pawse here. Read that quote again. Think about how smell conjures up memories. The more I sniff, the more I want to sniff everything. But I dog-gress.

I like what author Joan Reardon, expert biographer of Fisher, said of Proust's writings on nostalgia: "In pursuit of vanished time, he found a transfiguring moment in the taste of a madeleine dipped in a cup of lime flower tea."

In purr-suit of vanished time. Eee . . goosebumps.

Ms. Reardon has extensively researched nostalgia and gastronomic writing. She reviewed a nice book entitled The Future of Nostalgia by S. Boym. Reardon wrote, "Harvard professor Svetlana Boym says that the word was coined in 1688 by the Swiss doctor Johannes Hofer to identify the homesickness of Swiss soldiers who reacted physically to the hearing of certain folk melodies and the eating of rustic soups while on missions away from home."

Ah, food and music!

Back to feline palates. There are ways to prevent pussins from being overly fussy eaters. One way to entice pussin to the table that we understand now, thanks to Dr. J, is to make sure to educate the young palate by feeding a variety of good foods. Another way is by making sure the food is FRESH and species-appropriate. Woof? Big concepts. What I've learned from cats — experts would agree with this —is that they're responding to instincts that help nurture and protect them. Cats are merely expressing their need for SAFE, FRESH sources of protein and other nutrients.

I'm sure cats would rather eat the way they did back in the day: whole-prey dining. . . . Ain't that nostalgic? By the way, we dogs have different intestinal ecology than cats do. A cat's digestive system and instincts render her unable to tolerate stuff that we dogs inhale without a first or second thought. I think Ms. Fisher would say, "A pussin always displays good taste."

The last word goes to a recipezaar blog groupie: "MFK Fisher's The Art of Eating contains her most famous 5 novels in one! Anyone who loves food should try and get a copy, it's paperback. My cat scratched the index pages to shreds. . . ."