Cooking: a mathematics lesson.

Story problem: You have invited your family to dinner. There will be a total of 10 adults, four kids (ages three to five), two toddlers, and two infants. Your menu includes baked pasta, two kinds; a salad of lettuce, persimmons, gorgonzola, and toasted pecans; fresh baguette; roasted broccoli and cauliflower; and deconstructed apple pie for dessert. Given these facts, solve for the following:

• pounds of pasta 
  
• quarts of tomato sauce
• heads of lettuce
• handsful of pecans to toast
• heads of broccoli and cauliflower
• pounds of apples

Extra credit question:  what is the area required in the refrigerator for the leftovers, even after you have packed up all of the remainder of one kind of baked pasta for the kids as they leave, if you overestimate each and every item on the menu? By a factor of two?  

I will say, in my defense, that (1) there will be no need to cook tomorrow, since there is plenty of food, including dessert, and (b) we had a swell time and everything tasted splendid.  Check with anyone.

This just in.

It's mouse and bird hunting season for our aged cat. She killed and ate one bird yesterday while I was taking Bruiser for a walk. It's so very nice to come home to find an entirely deconstructed creature, all scattered feathers but minus its interior. Y'know, it's all surface--a postmodern kill.

Tonight, I heard her make a low yowling sound, which always indicates murderous intent. Mouse-icidal impulses. Indeed, she had a mouse in her mouth, which she dropped when the historian picked her up. This meant, with only minimal scampering, the mouse found a hiding place, which called for us to use the two-man mouse-trapping method. This involves a blanket and two people, one to shoo and the other to catch. Bonus: I moved a medium-sized pile of crap (bags, a purse or two, etc.) and found the mouse, which the historian (who has excellent hands) caught and released. Thanks, kitty!