It’s 55 degrees outside right now, and as the snow melts away, we can’t wait for spring and summer. Sure, The Rock Father™ is all about the music, but we’re also hardcore gardeners, and that’s what makes this so intriguing: There’s a band called ORANGE SHERBET that ”praise the delights of eating seasonal, locally grown foods!”
From the official press release: The award-winning Bay Area group Orange Sherbet serves up its most abundant family platter yet with its fifth album, Delicious. Set for release on May 15, Delicious is a tasty, jazzed-up, seventeen-song musical celebration of the foods of spring, summer, fall, and winter and the joys of growing, preparing, and enjoying nourishing, delicious meals.
Five years ago, Orange Sherbet’s Tamsen Fynn participated in the Eat Local Challenge with her husband, professional baker Eduardo Morell. They spent a month preparing and eating local foods grown and produced within 100 miles of home. Around that same time, Tamsen was introduced to the Local Foods Wheel, a wonderful tool for discovering local, seasonal food in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her creative energy went into high gear, and she soon found herself spending hours at the kitchen table with a pile of cookbooks and a long list of foods, on a quest for dishes that were mouthwatering and would lend themselves to musical treatment. With the enthusiastic agreement of Orange Sherbet bandmates Jill and Steve Pierce, both of whom love savoring a good, home-cooked meal, Orange Sherbet embarked on writing music for Delicious.
Recalls Jill Pierce, “We fell in love with every food we wrote songs about. What started as an inspiration to create a celebration of foods in season became a meditation on every bite.” Tamsen Fynn adds, “Everyone who worked on the CD needed regular lunch breaks, because we all got so hungry listening to the tempting descriptions of rice & beans, sautéed vegetables, or al dente pasta. This might be the first time a child who hears our music wants to taste bok choy, rutabaga, and mustard greens!”
Delicious encourages adventurous eating as it moves happily through the seasons of the year, with songs ranging from the jazz-influenced title track exploring the many flavors of food to a rock anthem in praise of waffles! Other highlights include “Farmers’ Market,” in which folk and rock combine with a dash of pop and a pinch of gospel, and “Chase That Pig,” where opera meets Zydeco. There’s even a nod to Santana in the Latin infused “Rice and Beans,” a song that is also a Puerto Rican recipe taught to Steve by Tamsen’s husband, Eduardo. The album’s finale, the “Garden Song,” was inspired by the simplicity of Kaulana Kanekoa and Vince Esquire’s version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” with just three voices and ukulele, recorded live.
Pretty sweet, right?
Having checked out the album preview that they’ve posted on www.orangesherbet.org, it’s safe to say that the little one and I will be grooving to some Orange Sherbet this May.
