Tuesday, November 12, 2013

As dear as your own

Okra blossom.  senk 2013
I love okra!  It's fun to pick off thin, towering stalks.  Sliced, oiled, salted, and roasted, buttery and browned okra rounds vanish more quickly in my home than Venetian honey cookies - which is saying something! And the blossoms lull your second glance when you pass through the garden.

Now, okra stalks are browned and withered. Joey and Ezra helped me gather dried pods we save for seeds in hopes of okra next year. And the only vibrant green veggie still soaking up sun and rain vines on fence trellises: sugar snap peas. I love sugar snap peas!

Isn't the variety of life wonderful, friend? Each season brings savory delights for all the senses (of course, I'm favoring taste buds in this post). Here, in the Shenandoah Valley, strawberries and black raspberries just seem to taste better when I pluck them off plants in Spring; apples and pumpkins spice up Autumn for me. As a child, I wasn't as adventurous to try unknown foods. Now, I delight to sample the great wealth God has stored in a vast array of foods.  

Are you adventurous in the realm of the culinary, too? Do you delight in the variety God puts in the other senses, too? Or do stereotypes and biases bound your way and keep you on one side? Take a moment, friend, to consider a vegetable or fruit you've never tried before and learn to appreciate it for what it is. Maybe you'll find that applicable to the people you meet today, too, as well as the valued opinions others hold as dear as your own.

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