I've been making this coleslaw for a few years, now, but somehow never blogged it. It's a bit different in that it contains sour cream, walnuts and dried cherries. If I can find them, I use a combination of dried Bing and Rainier cherries.

Start by soaking for 30 minutes, a total of an half-cup of dried cherries in warm sherry, brandy or wine, just enough to cover the cherries.

Quarter & core one small green cabbage and one small red cabbage. Slice the pieces very thinly. If you have a mandolin, this works great to slice the quarters of cabbage. You should wind up with about 2 quarts of cabbage. Put the shredded cabbage into a large bowl.

Peel and shred two medium, sweet carrots and mix with the cabbage. That mandolin will come in handy here, or just use the vegetable peeler, whittling away at the carrots as if you were making toothpicks.

Slowly pour in around a third of a cup of extra-virgin olive oil over the shredded cabbage/carrot mixture.

If you mix it with your hands, you can feel when you have enough oil to just lightly but completely, coat the cabbage. If you don't like to use your hands, just pour in a third of a cup of oil and hope it's the right amount.

Grind sea salt and rainbow pepper corns over the oiled cabbage to taste, and continue to mix. Set aside.

Juice a quarter to the whole of a small, sweet yellow onion (Walla-Walla, Visalia, or Maui). The amount of onion is really a matter of taste. To juice an onion, peel the amount to be juiced, and rub it over a ceramic, hole-less grater, collecting the juice in a mixing bowl.

Whisk together a quarter of a cup of tarragon white vinegar (wine or rice), a cup of sour cream, a teaspoon of freshly toasted caraway seeds - ground fine, a tablespoon of fine (quick-dissolving) white sugar and the onion juice.

Pour the dressing over the oiled, shredded cabbage.

Drain the cherries, and coarsely slice them; add to the dressed cabbage, and mix.

Chill for at least an hour, but overnight or even a day or two is fine.

Toast an half cup of walnut halves, dice and add to dressed cabbage, right before serving.

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And there you have it.

When I arrived home this past Friday night, there was a fire truck in front of my house, and a group of folk in my back yard. A tabby kitten belonging to new neighbors had run up the cypress tree in our back yard. The general consensus was that she would come down when she was hungry, and an opened can of tuna was left as an inducement.

Several times throughout the night, I went out to check on the kitten, who was mewing quite piteously, between naps. I even tried to get her to chase a spot of light from a flashlight, to get her to lower branches. She watched it, but never budged. I heard others come into our yard during the night, trying to induce the kitten down. But she was unmoved.

I later learned that the owner had come by with an arborist who used my ladder to climb into the tree, which only served to drive the kitten higher.

On Saturday morning, the owners, Sunshine and Leor, convinced the firefighters to come back, this time with a 75-foot hook and ladder truck, and another truck. I think all the on-duty firefighters from the Point Montara Coastside Fire Protection District were there, as well as a bunch of neighbors.

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Chip, whose backyard abuts ours, and who is also a firefighter, directed and photographed from on-high.

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The hook and ladder truck couldn't quite reach the tree from the street.

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But the arborist, using a regular ladder from the fire company, managed to lure the kitten into his arms, and brought her down.

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And all's well that ends well.