This Is What Cold Cellars Are For

In case you were wondering, Gob made cold cellars so you can pull a bag of beets out in February like you plucked them from soil just yesterday, slice them, dice them, dry them, and paste them to windows (and anything else they’ll stick to – especially bodies). And then take pictures.

Someone gave us a mandolin last christmas, and it has gathered dust in the satellite cupboards until it occurred to me the other day that we could officially donate it off without guilt. But at exactly the same time, Henry was developing a fondness for all things sliced thinly. So when he requested apples sliced thin the other night I started slicing out onion-skin apple slices until it occurred to me to bust out the mandolin. (Which I subsequently did).

Long story short it’s pretty fun to slice things really thin and before long I had everything that would allow for thin slicing out on the counter. As you might have suspected, the nice crisp blood-red beets took rather well to the format, and I was so in awe of their colors and patterns that I kept at it until I had sliced them all.

I pasted them (with their own juice) to the window because it was a nice canvas. They dried overnight into these crustacean-y waves and whorls and plates and I conceded to them that they were quite fetching and had rather stolen my heart.