Brownies from scratch

Yes, Baubo can talk. No, I don't know what language she speaks in.

Orange basil chicken

I like to cook and do so most nights. Occasionally my wife takes the reigns, but the kitchen is my refuge. Unfortunately I often share the space with my cockatoo. And it’s unfortunate because she is mischievous when at her best. This is one of the points I like to drive home when someone thinks they might like an exotic bird. Do you really want a perpetual two year old in your home at all times and a destructive one at that? Luckily we found that she enjoys shredding cardboard boxes, small ones. She does her shredding most often behind the microwave out of sight of curious eyes. But on occasion she ventures out to see what I’m cooking and if she is interested in a taste.

Baubo is supposed to be a vegetarian, but she has cultivated a taste for meat. Mostly for beef, but she won’t turn her nose up to chicken, which does not make her a cannibal since they are completely different species. Okay, it makes her a bit of a cannibal. Her diet is not conducive to long life and it contributes to other unhealthy lifestyle activities. These other activities are very complicated so a whole blog post will later be dedicated to Baubo’s unhealthy lifestyle choices. I can say now, while discussing her eating habits that Baubo’s diet is missing the essential fruits and vegetables that most large birds eat. She will eat some nutritional pellets and nuts, but her love is peanut butter and meat. I try to put good food into her food dish in the mornings in hopes that some nutrition will rub off onto her beak as she picks the items out and drops them to the floor.

Baubo is the name of the Greek belly goddess of humor. A friend of the family named our cockatoo as she came to our household bearing the name Tequila. That didn’t quite fit her personality, and my wife hates Tequila. This wondrous bird came to us via a Refuge for Saving the Wildlife. Our household no longer condones the keeping of exotic birds as pets since the practice is unnatural and very inhospitable for these beautiful creatures who only survive happily in the wild. If a person just must own an exotic we recommend adoption from a bird rescue. Please take the time to research what life will actually be like with a parrot in the family, especially a cockatoo, because it can be a very complicated matter and requires a great deal of commitment. Hopefully the reader can learn this by following Dinner with Baubo blog which will detail my cooking process and the small amount of help Baubo actually provides.

Baubo is 16 years old and out of those she has lived with us for 13 years. She is an ingrained part of our family by this time. Cockatoos have the mentality of a two year old child, and live to be seventy years old. That means we will always have a two year old living with us. We worry about where she will end up after my wife and I are gone because she is mean as hell. She has bitten everyone in the family except my wife and me. With no one else to take her in, she will most likely wind up back at a bird rescue.

How tasty she might be