Reaching Past Pasta Ads that Feature La Donna E Mobile

Every now and then, I've tried finding a TV commercial that advertised pasta and used a particularly catchy classical piece. I've long since forgotten the name of the pasta and most of the pasta words. I had never learned the name of the music until a few weeks ago. With some further effort beyond doing a playlist lookup for my local classical music radio station, I narrowed it down to "La Donna E Mobile" from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto. ("La Donna e Mobile" is a 43-sec instrumental autoplay audio that loops.)

I figured it would be easy to find the TV ad on YouTube, but it wasn't so. I expanded my searches. I've wracked my brain and looked all over the web. I posted to a forum requesting help in finding the ad. My inquiry included my feeble recall of lyrics that mention pasta shapes, such as mostaccioli, vermecilli, …. It seems the singer mentioned about 20 pasta shapes.

A couple of suggestions were close, but not correct. "The Pasta Song" has loads of pasta shapes in both lyrics and images. Not the correct song, however. Be forewarned that the images are mouth-watering and maybe hunger inducing! "Leggos ad by Grey Melbourne" starts out with a charming choreography of dancing tomatoes, and ends with their total destruction into sauce. Integration with music equipment is fascinating! Right music, incorrect lyrics.

I had an interesting journey seeking the ad. Besides encountering some nice performances, the following resources helped provide some overview of the opera plot.

• "Giuseppe Verdi - La donna è mobile from Rigoletto - Frascati Symphonic"
• "Luciano Pavarotti - La Donna È Mobile (Rigoletto)"
• "Vitas La Donna e Mobile HQ Official Version - English subtitles"
  This video's description includes Italian and English lyrics. The video fascinates me for the character who sings very high notes, starting at about 45 seconds. To me, he resembles a "younger Brent Spiner as Star Trek TNG's Commander Data".

Deeper curiosity about the plot led me to "Rigoletto Synopsis The Story of Verdi's Rigoletto", which provides info about the composer, characters, and summary about the entire play.

My curiosity about pronunciation percolated. "How to pronounce La donna è mobile" and "'La donna è mobile' Verdi (Rigoletto)" seem sensible resources.

The following links describe the popularity of La Donna e Mobile for various products—Doritos, tomato paste, Dancing with the Stars, Nestle Choco Crossies (cookies), AXE (body spray), …

• "How Rigoletto’s ‘La Donna e Mobile’ Has Dominated Pop Culture"
• "From tomato paste to Doritos: Rigoletto' aria a popular refrain"
• "The Commercial Domination of ‘La donna è mobile’"
• "What is the name of the opera song that used to be on a spaghetti commercial?"
  This forum topic looked like a promising resource for my inquiry. Alas, I think the pasta product's use of that song might go back way too far for most people to remember.

I have almost totally given up on trying to find the ad (eh, from maybe early 60s). I suppose someone's parent or older friend who worked there AND spotted this resource or my article could specify the company name. Long shot, I think.

Zucchini Overflow?

Good harvest of zucchini lately? Gotten a bunch from people who have been harvesting them? An explanation for the overflow might be from wiseGEEK's "What is zucchini?" site. "Many markets carry this squash in the summer, and it is also a snap to grow at home, although some caution is advised, as the plants can produce way more fruit than one would think is physically possible."

A few times this month, a co-worker brought some gargantuan ones, and I've gleefully partaken of them, and passed on buying any in the store for awhile. I've grated or sliced these homegrown ones for recipes, or bagging and freezing after shredding and slicing, As of a week ago, I've baked two half batches of zucchini mini-muffins, varied by well shapes, and one batch of crustless ham-swiss-zucchini quiche.

For the next few articles, I'll publish three recipes for zucchini mini-muffins and one for the quiche.
The two half-batches of mini-muffins I baked last week had the same ingredients and baking time. The pans differed—aluminum round vs. silicone square—because I wanted to test my theory that one type of pan would yield moister results than the other pan.

My third batch of mini-muffins will again use the same ingredients, but the amount will be a 3/4-recipe batch, using both types of pans. I'll be using zucchini that I grated, froze, bagged, then let thaw. I'll not squeeze, as thawed zucchini is watery when squeezed.

I consider mini-muffin sizes to be a bit more appealing than regular cupcake size—more units that are available for distributing in a social environment. The amount of batter for making one cupcake-sized goodie is the same amount as for three mini-muffins. (At a potluck event, people can more easily pick up a small, self-contained morsel than commit to a larger item or something that requires slicing, particularly a pie.)

The Betty Crocker recipe has lots of details, including baking times for various pans. The Paula Deen recipe includes nutmeg, a spice I'd like to use in more recipes than I do. The most appealing reason I like these two 2-loaf recipes, besides relative ease of the process, is the even number of eggs. Making half-recipes is a lot easier when dividing four eggs than three eggs.

Some additional zucchini links:

• Zucchini History
• Vegetable Dictionary - Zucchini
• Zucchini nutrition facts
• My veggie pasta recipe, which calls for zucchini as one of the four veggies. (Other veggies are celery, carrots, and yellow squash--all 1/2-pounds each, and Salad-Shooter sliced.)

Veggie Pasta

Up until now, I have titled my recipes with "Convenient". This recipe is a bit less convenient, but it's veggie loaded, and produces 10 servings of 8-ounce portions. You can share with family, company, or you can store leftovers in the freezer (using food wrap, Ziploc bags, etc.) for future convenient meals.

My recipe uses four kinds of vegetables, spaghetti sauce, pasta, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses, and a little bit of oil for separating the cooked pasta. The graphic provides a visual cue of the ingredients and stages of preparation.

Ingredients (guide for types and quantity—YMMV)

• 1/2 half pounds each of celery, carrots, zucchini, and crookneck squash, sliced
• 12 ounces of dry pasta
• 28-ounce jar of spaghetti sauce
• 8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese (minimum amount)

Utensils

• Dutch oven or pan large enough for cooking and stirring stages
• Large mixing bowl
• Medium-large mixing bowl
• Medium-large strainer
• Baking pan (9 x 13)
• Tablespoon
• Measuring cup (1/4 cup or so)
• Large metal or wooden spoon
• Spoon rest

The following descriptions of the images (grid of 5 across and 4 down) can help walk you through the stages of preparation. Preheat the oven to 375° some time before you put the casserole in the oven, or add about another 15 minutes to the baking time.

1. Image 1 through 5 show the initial stage of raw veggie preparation (paring and slicing). I use a Salad Shooter for making fast and consistent slices for cooking.
2. Images 6 and 7 show the pre-processed, non-veggie ingredients and the measuring items.
3. Images 8, 9, and 10 show the pasta-cooking stage. Cook according to box instructions, strain, and stir in enough oil prevent pasta clumpies.
4. Images 11, 12, and 13 show the veggie-cooking stage. Cook about 8 minutes or until your choice of doneness.
5. Images 14 and 15 show the merge stage for the cooked veggies, pasta, and spaghetti sauce.
6. Image 16 shows the preparation before putting all the cooked ingredients and cheeses into the baking pan. Layer the ingredients into the baking pan as follows:
   

   Parmesan (top)
   Mozzarella
   Mix of sauce, pasta, veggies
   Parmesan
   Mozzarella
   Mix of sauce, pasta, veggies (bottom)

7. Image 17 shows the pan with the ingredients, topped by the final Parmesan cheese layer.
8. Image 18 shows the assembled casserole, covered with aluminum foil, ready for it to go into the oven.
9. Image 19 shows the covered casserole in the oven. Bake at 375° for about 40 minutes. YMMV for time.
10. Image 20 shows the finished casserole. Waiting a few minutes for the casserole to cool down a little helps portioning out rectangles with a griddle spatula or cooky spatula.

For other recipes, you can enter "recipe" in the Blogspot search. Or you can download my article catalog and visually scan for yellow rows, which include links to recipe articles.

MnM--Munch n Music

YouTube playlist for this article,
playlist compilation article

Was in the mood for writing about two of my favorite topics, both rolled into one. My thoughts started out with wanting to pop some popcorn with my quite-old air popper. During the course of popping, melting butter, and mixing the butter and salt into the popped kernels into a large kettle, I thought about having read kernel popping action. I read that the kernel turns inside out. So I decided to look up some youtube videos. Eureka!

• Brainiac Science Abuse - Popcorn Popping In Slow Motion (This video shows someone popping popcorn on a stove top.)
• High speed video of popcorn kernel popping at 5,400 fps
• Pop corn in slow motion

I thought about a song titled "Popcorn" and found a video, which is actually the moog music set to video. Gershon Kingsley wrote in about 30 seconds, according to background info on him. A song that sounds very similar to Popcorn is Percolator.

• Peanuts (theme)
• Peanuts (do-wop)
• Peanut Vendor (Beatles)
• Take Me Out to the Ball Game
• Palisades Park
• Java (Al Hirt)
• You're the Cream in My Coffee

I found more substantial consumables as follows. Of course, themes about music and food must include Weird Al. I did sandwich some of his videos with other food-term songs. Some of these videos are trips down memory lane. Click and get down!

• Eat It
• Chicken Dance Song
• Funky Chicken
• Turkey Trot
• On Top of Spaghetti
• Annoying Orange: Lady Pasta Song
• Rye or the Kaiser
• Bread and Butter
• Turn the Tub Around (I Can't Believe It's Butter/Turn the Beat Around)
• My Bologna
• Famous Alka-Seltzer "No Matter What Shape" TV Commercial - from 1966!