I hate to waste food. So after a recent party instead of just tossing the leftovers, I made an effort to to come up with a meal that utilized the crudites that were left.

I didn’t want another raw food meal or a stir fry rice thingy.

This reminds me a little of pot roast; vegetarian style , of course.

It kind of looks like that, don’t you think?

I just sauteed the vegetables as they were, added them to some linguine added feta cheese, balsamic vinegar and Ghee. You could also use butter.

This was a complete meal and quite different from the ingredients original incarnation.

My secret ingredient ? Live music in my kitchen!

Check out this video performance of “Summertime” by Dolinar Spahija!

Charles Mingus and Miles Davis. Now, Kind of Blue is an old favorite of mine, as it is for so many. I think that many of whom born on the tail end of the Baby Boom generation don’t realize that a lot of this kind of music provided the background for their childhood.

Anyone who has ever watched I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched or any Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis film and countless other movies and television shows from that era will find the jazzy sound familiar and evocative of the milk man, soda in glass bottles, and station wagons, just to name a few.

I can remember rainy afternoons as a child, sitting in front of the record player, reading the liner notes on the record sleeves and looking at the artwork on the album covers. This time period, around 1959, had some particularly great artwork. S. Neil Fujita provided the memorable art on Charles Mingus’ Ah Um and on many Columbia Records releases. These works have become generational icons both musically and artistically.

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Just as I did as a child, I wiled away a Sunday afternoon listening to great Jazz, gazing at captivating artwork and transporting myself to a time and place which lives only in my dreams and in the melodies of Miles and Mingus.