Ornamental cabbage and kale never used to appeal to me until I got well into adulthood. There was something disconcerting about having something so utilitarian transformed into something designed solely for beauty and appearance. How strange that I should have fought it for so long. Sounds delightfully perfect for me – but really that’s only been the image of me. The real me is much more practical and frugal.
Now, I find myself at a happy reconciliatory place, able to enjoy such prettiness as a function of itself, even if it’s meant not for the stomach, but for the eye, destined to thrill only by sight, before wilting away in the hardest frost. These days the ornamental kale and cabbage seen in fall entryways all over New England are favorites of mine, and I always fall prey to taking a hundred photos of their innermost beauty.
