Back to our regularly scheduled program, Corin and I had a little video chat today after his visit with his grandparents (my parents) and his great-grandmother, back from her trip to Seattle. He’s got some new tricks he wanted to show me. We also shared some laughs. Have I mentioned how much I love this little guy?

I’ve eaten all kinds of purple veggies, like eggplant, cauliflower and cabbage. OK, the cabbage is actually called red cabbage, but it looks purple to me. But have you seen purple string beans? What about the Chinese long beans? Or okra? Well, it’s called red okra, but they looked pretty purple when I spotted them at the Union Square Greenmarket on Friday. I’m so excited that this will be my go-to farmers market in just a few weeks. So have you seen any other cool purple produce lately?

Red okra - the body is purple, but the stem at the top is definitely red.

Purple long beans

Not so unusual, but pretty round eggplants.

Purple string beans (Note: I tried these a couple summers ago, and these are trick beans. They don’t actually stay purple when you cook them - they turn green. Maybe if you just blanch and shock them, they’d retain their majestic color?)