When I buy cat food, I try to imagine what brands and flavors I’d want to eat if I were a cat. That means a lot of dry food — chicken-flavored pellets and cereal-like munchies. As far as “wet” foods are concerned, I decide based on how the various Fancy Feast servings smell when I dish them onto the cat plate. That automatically means no pate-like servings. I don’t like grilled cat dinners either. I only like the sliced and flaked kind.

Note: Anya, our two-year-old Siamese, eats a variety of fruits and vegetables — tomatoes, avocados, watermelon — as well as yogurt, cheese, toasted bread, sour cream. She doesn’t like bananas but she likes clam soup. And vanilla ice cream.