When it comes to showing the way with cooking, flowers can feel as much like nature’s signposts as seasonal produce at a market. Magenta dahlias with heads the size of dinner plates bring on an urge to slice ripe tomatoes, because they’re always around at the height of summer. A field of white narcissus is a reminder to enjoy the last of broth-simmering Saturdays because spring is on her way.
For Brandon it’s his beloved March Lily (pictured above), and if you missed what he wrote about it click here. It’s so captivating because at a time when everything is retreating and turning brown, it appears as a flash of pink. And it feels counterintuitive to have a flower ushering in autumn when we expect flowers to signal spring.
Spring is the season I find myself in right now and morning runs have become more like fieldwork for show-and-tell, because I can’t go two kilometres without stopping to snap baby-pink blossoms against blue sky or crouching down to get the right angle on a trumpet daffodil. For the first time in a long time we’re in different hemispheres, swopping pictures and stories and deciding which season to lead with.
While I’m marveling at the variety of fresh herbs available at a produce vendor and contemplating green sauce, Brandon is in the garden processing the last of the pomegranates. On the weekend my dad shared pictures of a budding red candelabra flower against sun-scorched grass, and lilac March lilies in prolific clusters at the scene of our autumn bolletjie braai.
Then, while walking back from watching a pair of swans feathering their nest, I got a ping from Brandon with a mini photo essay of the ‘juicing factory’. Like a telephone conversation between two time zones, we’re pulled in different directions, but what keeps us connected is we’re both shifting seasonal gears.
Nikki- the March lily is my absolute favourite too. I wrote this post in 2016... my daughter is named Eva March.. partly after the March lily!
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What beautiful points of connection and thank you for sharing your own March lily post!