Sage, honeydew, eating the colors

The sage is blossoming, with flowers like those of antirrhinum, snapdragon. I don't know the botanical name of this flower shape. This plant seems to blossom every other year.

Have you noticed how many herbs and wildflowers are in the blue to purple range? I wonder if it's a default color.

Years ago I read that a good guide to a varied healthy normal food intake is to eat all the colors.  That way you'll eat fruit and veggies, since meats and potatoes are less colorful but can be included. 

I don't like insistence on one way to eat. If it suits you, lovely, just don't be trying to get everyone on your wavelength. This has been a public service announcement.

Don't be like the (then) friend who, about to carve into a ham to cut the small piece I'd chosen on request, waved the ham knife in my face and demanded: dietary or  principle? I felt a little intimidated, as you do with a knife in your face. 

So I try not to put anyone else on the spot. I don't like red meat, but I try not to act as if that's the Chosen Way, nor to get into a discussion of cattle farming practices. I have been getting a bit of pressure on other websites in case you wonder what brought this on. Sometimes friends get a bit carried away.

It occurs to me then that my fun food capers might be read as a message. Noooooo. No food police around here! Anyway I've been meaning to say this for a while, in case anyone wondered. I just invite you to watch the fun.  And I do like seeing a lot of colors on my plate.

I expect there are readers who think what a lot of bother she goes to, before they order takeout. Or well, she never grills a nice piece of meat, she's missing out, poor lady, but I plan on steak tonight. Good! Chacune (most of us are women) a (insert grave accent) son gout (insert circumflex). That saying might have been more trouble than it's worth.

Anyway, there's joy in Butternut Boy's heart, since I tossed out honeydew seeds and rind. And some sweet potato trimmings.

Enough on one sweet potato for two meals

Roast sweet potatoes and a baked egg. A version of egg and chips really. Bunch of fresh thyme. 

The green of the honeydew melon is heart lifting. So beautiful. No need to season.

The rest of the sweet potato will be mashed a bit and included in a mushroom and sweet potato pasty today. Thyme chopped in.

It's as hot as the clappers today, 90s f. Too hot for me to go out. I don't do well with sudden heat. There's a certain irony in my finishing my warm Mitered Squares jacket today, sheltering in a cool house.

The Spice Girl arrived!

My spice bush aka Viburnum carlesii arrived from White Flower Farm, yay, great excitement and on a nice cool day but no rain, good for me to plant. I know plants love to be planted on a rainy day, but some humans aren't quite so on board with digging in the rain.

So she's now in place in the corner of the fence where the neighborhood will get the benefit of lovely scents next year, and she'll give me a bit of shade in the area where I'll be putting out houseplants next year, too.

I thought you'd like to see what a nice job WFF does with their shipping.  She arrived in a plastic container, totally secure with paper and tape, never shifted, not a crumb of earth got loose, not a twig broken.

 So she's all set to get organized over the winter for me.  What with the purple sage on one corner sending out sage scent all summer into fall, and the spice bush with pink and white blossoms, sweet lovely scent late spring and into summer, and the common lilac spreading all over next door in spring, that area will be quite well supplied with aromatherapy.  We have other spicebush specimens in the neighborhood but this saves a walk to sniff them.