the flowers are prettier than the food

I really love flowers. Perhaps its the fact that i grew up with a mother obsessed with gardening, and we often had fresh flowers on the table (i'm not kidding about the obsessed part - every time i come home, i find that mother has dug up another section of the yard for more flower beds. its slightly absurd, but very pretty). And perhaps it is also that my aunt used to buy flowers for herself at the market all the time, so that she would have something pretty in a vase. and i always loved stopping by the chinese flower lady in kendall square, making picking up a few daises for friends, or a plant for myself (i kept a cyclamen alive for *months* once, it was amazing, the thing never died!)

but in any event, i love flowers. and i dont have any spots in my apartment that would allow for flower pots - the windows dont have large sills (and arent in spots i could put a table by) and so there is no sun access. at the old apartment, not only did we have large window sills in the kitchen, but we had a back deck that we could put plants on (not that i really did, except for some hanging plants; jamie was the gardener of the 3 of us) but i really have no options at the current apartment. so i am now getting into the habit of picking up some flowers every few weeks at the market, to decorate the kitchen table. a few weeks ago, it was gerber daisies (my favorites). this week? a collection of daffodils, tulips, and other pretty things. definitely a happy sight at the end of the day. at some point, i think i am going to investigate options for a hanging herb garden for my kitchen.

but back to the actual point of this blog: food. my CSA gave me celeriac this week. and yellow beets. and tons of other delicious things (it was a good week) but the important thing is that i got tasty items that are particularly delicious when julienned in a salad. and so...i pulled out my mandoline, and chopped up a TON of vegetables. carrot, beet, celeriac, cucumber, apple. makes quite the delicious salad! except...it makes a delicious salad that will last for DAYS and DAYS because when you chop all of that up you have an absurdly large quantity of chopped vegetables. which really gets tiring and boring after a while...i will be eating them...all week long, before my trip to NYC this weekend!