serpentine!

one of my favorite scenes in any movie i’ve ever watched is from the in-laws where alan arkin and peter falk are sustaining deadly gunfire, and decide that they need to run away from the bullets by running serpentine, zigzagging back and forth between an airplane and the getaway vehicle. then they realize they don’t have the keys. the keys are with the dead guy who just got shot. so arkin runs back to the dead guy to get the keys to the getaway vehicle, but makes the terrible mistake of running to get the keys, and also running back through the gunfire, in a straight line. he arrives safely, but his buddy reminds him he is supposed to run serpentine. so he returns to the dead body, through more gunfire, then runs properly, in serpentine fashion, back to the getaway car. watch the scene. watch it ten times in a row, and tell me if you’re not still laughing.

celery (Apium graveolens)

heraldic crest

this is the new heraldic crest of the divine order of the minimalists that i just invented. display it with pride, all you junk tossers, clutter clearers, closet cleaners, uniform wearers, white wall painters, and believers in our family creed: less is more.

cauliflower

pentagons don’t tesselate

that title, by the way, will be the name of my band if i ever form one. we tried to fit these okra slices into a pattern like a honeycomb or a soccer ball, but discovered, and later confirmed online, that pentagons don’t fit together like that. they don’t tesselate. on the other hand, just look at them. little pockets of lacework. who cares if they don’t tesselate. just let them be their beautiful selves.

okra

eyeballs

these are not eyeballs with optic nerves, but slices of kohlrabi, possibly the least interesting vegetable on earth, except that its husk is the most perfect asparagus green. so go ahead. enchant us, kohlrabi. just don’t make us eat you in the form of crunchy white batons tasting of nothing.

kohlrabi

edible thistle

the first time my husband and i ate artichokes, we were reminded quite vividly that it is technically a thistle. we were served in a california restaurant when i was still in grad school, and we simply began eating the leaves whole, which was like swallowing small triangles of sheet metal. we decided we did not like artichokes until many years later, when someone taught us the right way to eat them. we’ve eaten many of them successfully by now, but my favorite artichoke was that first one, as we laughed together over napa valley wine, and swallowed thistle leaves, and took another step toward falling in love.

globe artichoke (Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus)