vegetables, pencils and the characer of a happy warrior

Regarding vegetables, my apartment tomatoes and jalapeno have finally decided to produce. Three tomatoes thus far (still green) and one jalapeno (with buds for more). The tomatoes are taking over; i'm eventually going to need a machete to get them out of the window they've conquered. In other vegetable news, i received a text today from LZ asking if cauliflower, turnips and parsnip spark when you microwave them. i've only (inattentively) microwaved cauliflower, but tossed google. It turns out, this is not-infrequent thing, to which trace minerals in the vegetables have been credited.

Furthermore, i learned today that certain fruits/berries need to blet (ripen to the point of rot) before they're palatable. This was via a post for medlar jelly via David Lebovitz's fantastic cooking blog.

"If it drives you mad/ it'll probably pass." - Andrew Bird's Orpheo. He was on the Letterman show the other night, playing a lovely cover of a Townes Van Zandt song. i got Hands Of Glory today (the companion album to Break it Yourself), and it's a very odd, semi-dark album. It came with two pencils. i queried the dude at the music store counter, "Why pencils?", and neither of us had a satisfactory answer. Pencils may be undergoing a sort of Renaissance, with the release last year of a book dedicated specifically to their sharpening (the author is an artisan pencil sharpener, and will sharpen pencils just for you). (Have i blogged on this before?!)

In President Obama's speech following the announcement of the 2012 Presidential election, he referred to Biden as "America's Happy Warrior". Now, this is an interesting term, and required a little research. Apparently, it originates in a Wordsworth poem mostly about Lord Haratio Nelson, "The Character of a Happy Warrior", which, as you might imagine, describes a model warrior. Other resources go into slightly more background; "a jovial "generous Spirit" who fights for a cause or goes through the tasks of life while exhibiting a variety of admirable, often innocent qualities  ".