11/ FRIDAY AT FELICIA'S ATOMIC LOUNGE

After scaring up a little dinner after work, I cycled downtown to Felicia’s Atomic Lounge on West State Street, next to Gimme Coffee. Some Friday evenings an eclectic old-timey band plays there, and tonight I lucked out.

They call themselves Long John & The Tights—a latter-day Holy Modal Rounders with more instruments. John Hoffmann, one of my coworkers in Olin Library, plays a wicked fiddle. There’s a 5-string banjoist, a banjo ukelele player also from the library, a tenor guitarist, and percussive accompaniment from a small woman on the upright piano in the corner. A banjo uke is a four-string banjo about the size of a ukelele. The tenor guitar is about the size of a mandolin, also with four strings. Whatever it is, it’s fun. It the kind of the music people played outdoors at impromptu get togethers in the Arkansas Ozarks when we lived down there in the 1970s.

A few songs after I arrived, a young man ducked out the door and returned with a small wooden box open on the bottom side and covered with thin plywood on the top. It was about two and a half by three feet and three inches tall. Turns out it was a clogging box or pedestal. After shimming one corner with a couple of pieces of folded paper, he began dancing to the music. Not your high-stepping Irish-style clog, but a shuffling, syncopated, heel and toe routine. Turns out he is the son of the woman playing the tenor guitar. Turns out he also made the guitar. A dancing guitar maker.

Felicia’s is that type of place—low-key and eclectic. People wander in and out. There’s a bar on one side, and two couches and some black Naugahyde easy chairs by the music. [Background on the Nauga, source of Naughyde, at http://www.naugahyde.com/history.html]

As I left Felicia’s, two cyclists straddled their bicycles in the sidewalk out front. One was an older man with a ponytail and a beard dressed in full pirate regalia—black pirate boots with the turned-down tops, the black pirate hat, full pants, the full-sleeved shirt, a black leather vest, and flying the Jolly Roger from a tall whip on the back of his bike. The whole nine yards. Another Friday night in Ithaca.

Footnote: Today (Sunday, two days later) I figured out that Friday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day [http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html]. That put the pirate costume in context. The revelation came via the Friday, September 19, New York Times crossword puzzle. The clue for 8 DOWN is "'Well I'll be!,' as it might be said on September 19." The answer is "Shiver me timbers." That's when the light went on.

--Michael

10/ OKRA IN ITHACA

Okra plants in our kitchen garden peeking out from behind the netting like eager doggies.

Growing okra is not something I expected to accomplish in Ithaca. Okra likes hot weather. We grew it in Arkansas in the mid-1970s where it's plenty hot in the summer.

We were late getting the kitchen garden planted this year because of our major renovation project on it. One weekend in June we saw some Little Lucy okra plants for sale at Blue Heron at the Ithaca Farmer's Market. Little Lucy is a dwarf red variety that is adapted to our more northern climate. The Blue Heron folk assured us they would grow well here, and grow they have! We bought four plants. I Being in the hibiscus family, they have a lovely flower. l only have a photo of a furled blossom:

The best way to cook them is to roll them in stone-ground corn meal and sautee them in a iron skillet with some nice oil. Maybe a little salt. That's it--a summer treat. They also work well as thickening in soup--classically in Louisiana gumbo. Here they are, ready to eat:

9/ THE LATEST NEWS

Your trusty bloggee and bloggette have returned from vacation in the Pacific Northwest. Thanks to our readers who have asked about what's happened with the blog. Well, we have recovered from jet lag. And are back at work. And we promise to post next Saturday, if not before. Thanks for staying with us! We are busy eating local corn, red and green peppers, green beans, okra, tomatoes, peaches, cukes, carrots, grapes, spinach, cilantro, garlic, eggplant. More summer veggie posts to come: promoting okra in Vermont, finding locally grown and dried Italian prune plums in Washington, eating Dungeness crab, witnessing the tossing of the Coho at the Pike Street Market, and consuming gigantic marionberries in Oregon.

—Jane and Michael