keeping it fresh

i try very deliberately to surprise my husband on a regular basis. not in big showy ways, but it in little ways–buying a food we’ve never tried, taking a new scenic route on a routine trip, picking up books at the library on subjects we know nothing about, etc. he always looks at me out of the corner of his eye when i do this and i smile and say “just keeping it fresh”. i also try to keep it fresh here on STILL blog too. i deliberately mix up the posts (single-subject, assemblages, gridded, messy, etc). i get a little thrill when i am  posting something that i know will be entirely unexpected–like twelve daddy longlegs (here) or a portrait of my son joseph (here). i hope i am successful at this. i hope your morning visit to STILL contains both the reassurance of something beloved and the little thrill of suspense that there might be something unexpected in the offing.

the other day, i pulled out a cookbook we use a lot when we are in southern france–LuLu’s Provencal Table. as i was leafing through it, i happened on this dried stem i had tucked into the book the last time we were there (about a year ago now). i had used the book as a leaf press. it was not at all what i expected to find on the page describing grilled sardines. i guess i was just keeping it fresh.

pressed tamarind leaf