My son asked me the other day how beets grow - from the other side of the room because he doesn't like them. He thinks they taste like dirt, which is what's so sensual about them, I think. Also their intense color and density and uncloying sweetness, and that they stain like ink what they touch. A writer would do worse than imitate the aesthetic of a beet.

I got a digital camera for Christmas, and I've been jammed up about what to shoot. So I thought I'd start with fruits and vegetables. And that I'd find out how they grow, and how they present themselves to be picked, or uprooted, or sheared.



The first time I ate a blood orange was in the 60s, when we lived in Italy, and they were a cause for celebration. A fruit to be prized, which made me fear the enjoyment of them. They contain a pigment called anthocyanin that's usually found in flowers and red fruits. They need a marked variation between the heat of the day and the coolness of night (so do I), and grow best in a Mediterranean climate.

Yesterday, I bought two and rather than covet them in the fruit bowl, I ate one this morning. The flesh of this orange looks ambivalent about going completely red, which makes it look wounded rather than decided.