Just as surely and famously each year The Times prints letters from readers claiming to have heard the first cuckoo of spring, so each year this blog infamously shows a first picture of painted toe nails. This season opens with bright emerald green in homage to Berlin and Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles in Goodbye to Berlin/Cabaret (although hers are more dramatically dark).
It's also the same colour as the beautiful cauliflower I made into a curry yesterday. I hadn't given this humble veg a second thought or glance until I folded back the leaves and saw what I realised could be construed as the flower of its name.
*I used this old phrase in one of my books and had to laugh when an American copy editor 'corrected' it to 'as sure as eggs are eggs'. I had to correct it back to the correct incorrect version.
Your toes are great! If I weren't so ticklish, I'd have a proper pedicure. As it stands, I'll have ogre's feet until then. I just tried mashed cauliflower for the first time last week and I'm totally in love - With the recipe from foodnetwork.com it's easy and awesome! (And hardly any calories, yay!) Have a great day, and I'm so happy you haven't stopped blogging!
Posted by: j | March 28, 2011 at 14:27
I love your nails, the colour is wonderful! I haven't quite got round to doing my toenails yet this year, the Scottish climate is still a bit changeable and one's toes can only be bared for short intervals; but you have inspired me to go and look for some spring colours of nail varnish.
Posted by: Marie | March 28, 2011 at 15:06
Ah, the fresh spring toenail polish! I do mine all year although who knows why as no one sees them most months except me. My favorite right now is sort of an Easter-ish lavender.
Thanks for the cauliflower curry inspiration - that sounds good!
Posted by: patty | March 28, 2011 at 17:22
Mmm cauliflower!
Love the emerald green nail polish! x
Posted by: PinkCat | March 28, 2011 at 20:44
great colour!!
does it have a really cool name too? (I'm sure it's not called 'cauliflower leaves'!!
Posted by: monica | March 28, 2011 at 20:46
Lovely greens Jane. Cauliflower curry sounds like a great dinner option too!
Posted by: Ruthanne (Seattle) | March 28, 2011 at 22:03
I've painted my nails green for Spring too- but I did mine last Thursday to celebrate St Patrick too!
Posted by: magsmcc | March 28, 2011 at 22:13
LOL the chutzpah of copy editors.
What was the likelihood that you suffered a sudden, mid-manuscript lapse of subject-verb agreement?
xo Kay
Posted by: Kay | March 29, 2011 at 00:31
Too cold for me to get my toes out yet. My daughter has painted hers though in a very similar colour but with added glitter.
Posted by: Sue | March 29, 2011 at 08:14
Griddled - so smokey - tasting cauliflower is also amazing in veg curry. Adore the green nails, beautiful!
Posted by: Ann | March 29, 2011 at 10:24
Yes, it's too parky for peep toes here too.
Cauliflower - I had almost forgotten about it. It's called 'white broccoli' by my little ones. Time for cauli cheese I think.
Posted by: Emma | March 29, 2011 at 11:02
Yotam Ottolenghi (my other hero) also celebrates cauliflower - cauli cake and cauli frittata w duck eggs and scamorza affumicata plus smoked paprika are two of my favourites
Have you ever bought Romanesco in Italy? It's a great example of how fiddling w genes by conventional crossing you can end up with something just a little bit freakish looking - and Romanesco and cauliflower's modified flowers give us lots of information about the genetic control of flower formation. Which is fascinating, but another story
Great emerald green toes
Posted by: Oxslip | March 29, 2011 at 18:15
Sorry, this comment is so not on the point of this post, but I have just been catching up and I couldn't help but respond to a previous post re comments on your first book. I don't know what was your first book, but I bought Cherry cake etc on the basis of the Swallows & Amazons seed cake recipe, which I wanted to try for years and then could. And it was wonderful!
Thank you for being the person to find it.
Posted by: Alison L | March 29, 2011 at 19:28
Nice toenails! I can't really wear green (believe me I've tried with several shades!) so I'm sporting grey on mine but have yet to bare them outside. Like Patty I like to have some colour all year round, but I wear less on my fingers as I play the piano every day and I'm easily distracted from the score by prettily coloured flashes!
Posted by: geraldine | March 29, 2011 at 20:23
Love the nail color, was wondering if you might share the name of the brand and color,big fan of your blog, thanks, Teresa
Posted by: Teresa | March 29, 2011 at 20:39
mmmmm ... cauliflower risotto...
Posted by: trash | March 29, 2011 at 20:52
Is it really so warm where you are? Lucky you! Although a week and a half ago, we had a day in which I was able to be barefooted inside my sandals - bliss!
Posted by: Lisa | March 30, 2011 at 00:19
Love those toenails!
Posted by: Emily | March 30, 2011 at 01:33
Love them nails!!
Ingrid xx
Posted by: Ingrid | March 30, 2011 at 18:47
Love those green polished toenails! And the cauliflower is lovely~
Posted by: Shanda | March 30, 2011 at 19:26
Dear Jane,
I would like to comment for the first time on your blog.
I don't remember the exact moment I started "following" it, but I would like to let you know, like so many others already did, that I really like coming back here, for so many reasons (the novelty you bring to me in our different realities, the colourfulness of your posts, a certain indescribable coziness, ...).
Blogging, letting yourself out there, is not an easy task.
I also revisit my defunct blog from time to time, and I'm always startled by the fact that I indeed wrote those words, by the fact that I indeed had those feelings and I lived those moments...
Sometimes, it really feels like reading about a different person, a past life...
I really take it as a positive aspect of it all, though: it's like reading through this "public" private diary, to which we can always go back whenever we wish. And feel ashamed of it if we want, like young adults that revisit their teenage diaries, or surprised by it, by the way we put it all out there...
But that we keep public, because at that time, it was truly who we were, what we felt and what we really intended on making known...
The comments one gets always have two sides to it, right? Not everyone agrees or enjoys what we have to say, and yes, when that happens, I also wonder why do these people keep on coming back...
But still...
I felt and I feel so many people love what you do!
And like so many others, to conclude: this blog is yours!; you write what and about what you wish, whenever you like or feel like it!
You decide! Because you have that power!
Love,
r
P.S. - I have that same nail polish, by the way...
And a matching colour mascara, that has, in the meantime, dried...
Posted by: Rafaela | March 31, 2011 at 13:19