Tuneful Tuesday: Vegetables!

To the right is a photo of "ratatouille-to-be" that I took a couple of weeks ago after a visit to the Farmer's Market. Now we've eaten the ratatouille (it was a "roasted" version that I got from Allrecipes.com). Last week, I went a little crazy on cucumbers (3 for a buck) so I need to start serving a dish of cucumbers with each meal before they go bad. So of course, I began thinking of this song, and thereafter of other songs involving vegetables. Sadly, I wasn't able to find a good recording of one of my favorites, "If you're anxious for to shine" from Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, or, Bunthorne's Bride, where the advice to the would-be aesthete is to form "an attachment á la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a not-too-French French bean." Try your local library. But here are a few more vegetable songs:
1. Call Any Vegetable, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, in a more recent version by Frank's son Dweezil.


2. I think the real name of this song may be "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," but it's known to many for the line "You like tomaytoes, I like tomahtoes" -- or is it the other way around?


3. I used some basil, rosemary and oregano from my little container garden in my ratatouille, but thinking of herbs made me think of this song, and I found a somewhat different version of it:


4. And this, although not exactly a catchy tune, is a very interesting example of what one can do with vegetables:


I hope you enjoy these vegetable songs and that they inspire you to go to your farmer's market (or your garden) and get some more vegetables! And at least I've posted something that wasn't a Friday Five!

When fall comes to New England...

Cheryl Wheeler's "When Fall Comes to New England" is one of many songs on the new Autumn playlist I made on the computer this morning. Some are specific like that one, "Autumn Leaves", and "Turning Toward the Morning." Others are more atmospheric, expressing the ideas of transition, yearning, and nostalgia that come up at this time of year. "My Sweet Wyoming Home", "Miss the Mississippi and You", and the classic Tom Rush version of Joni Mitchell's "Urge for Going" are examples. (And then there's "In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus, Eins, zwei. G'suffa!" No need to explain that one! Or Tom Lehrer -- "Fight Fiercely, Harvard!" They bring fall to mind although it's many years since I've indulged in much beer or football.) What songs would be on your autumn playlist?

Here's a photo of the very beginnings of fall color here in Brunswick.
Onkel Hankie Pants would probably say this tree is stressed in some
way. It's a very tall one, maybe that's why.

Rusty spends a lot of time when he is not sleeping, jumping, or being taken for walks, in the manner portrayed below. He is watching for squirrels. When he sees one, he goes completely crazy, jumping, barking, or making a very odd noise, and scrabbling at the window (or, with even worse effect, the window screens) with his paws. We can hardly wait for the squirrels to hibernate.
You can probably tell that his nose and panting tongue don't do the window glass any good, either.
Today I inveigled him into his crate with a Frosty Paws and escaped to the library for the first in a series of lectures on the topics covered in Field Notes from a Catastrophe. It was about the melting of the Arctic Ice. Only one chapter into the book and I've already learned a new word, albedo. (Look it up! or read the book).
It's a worrying, not to say depressing, topic, but one we all need to be aware of.

I heard today that a friend from Minneapolis will be visiting in October, and perhaps also The Accountant will come from Seattle (not concurrently). I'm looking forward to showing them around Brunswick and environs, taking them to the Farmer's Market -- here's a picture of part of it from last Friday. You can get everything from lobsters to rhubarb jam there; there's also a woman who sells Indian food (naan bread and so on), cut flowers and bedding plants, eggs, and last week, one of the vendors who usually is mostly about vegetables had a sign urging us to inquire about beef hearts and such -- "let's make a deal!"

I've been working on "B is for Berlin" and found some interesting sites to link to.
But just to show that I don't live entirely in the past, I thought I'd update my reader(s) on some more daily activities.