Side dish in the background (13)
I believe the answer is:
accompaniment
'background' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to natural events as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'side dish in the' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'dish' could be 'pan' (I have seen 'Shallow dish ' mean 'pan' so perhaps 'dish' could also mean 'pan') and 'pan' is present in the answer.
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for accompaniment that I've seen before include "Something subsidiary that is added" , "Supporting musical line" , "Supporting musical part" , "Complement" , "Backing" .)