Saturday, December 27, 2008

Photo Hunt ' Squeaky"




This week's theme for Photo Hunt is "squeaky".
Now, you might know I like words, specifically cute ones like this one.
And what I love about this word is that it is used in many different ways,
some of them quite amusing.
Lots of different things can make squeaky sounds.
Anything from mice to hamsters, brakes on a car or wagon wheels, floors and carpets...
I should not forget to mention the squeaky beds, rusty hinges on old doors ....
and most annoyingly ... squeaky shoes, ewww!
So, it's really not too hard for me to imagine the squeaky sound of this gate.


But it also made me remember the "bubble and squeak" we had for lunch in London this summer.
There it is in the next picture, that round vegetable cake hidden underneath the lamb.
I had heard of that dish through BBC cooking programmes but I had never eaten it before I ordered it. It turned out to be very tasty.
The British often refer to it as "bubble" but I love the squeaky bit in the name of the dish!
It's made with left over vegetables and meat, mashed with potatoes.
The vegetables are being boiled, which accounts for the " bubble".
While "squeak" refers to the sizzling sound of this mash meeting the hot butter in the frying pan.
Squeaky vegetables, don't you just love the thought?



I managed to find yet another use for this word which is this:
squeak through/by To manage barely to pass, win, or survive: squeaked through the test; squeaks by on a limited income. This also makes sense, serving left over vegetables would manage you to squeak by on a limited budget, that's very true!



Oh, and I like this one by the American humorist Josh Billings (1818-1885)
from his poem, "The Kicker":
"I hate to be a kicker [complainer], I always long for peace,
But the wheel that does the squeaking is the one that gets the grease."

Don't you just love this? I do!

Go here to see other Photo Hunt pictures