Lepiota aspera, boudieri, castanea, clypeolaria, cortinarius, cristata, fuscovinacea, grangei on Flickr.
The Families of Mushrooms and Toadstools Represented in the British Isles
source Delta Keys
fecklessminds: The Hälssen & Lyon tea calendar features calendar days made from tea leaves.
The Makers of Chili Paste
The old fort on the hill is now a chili factory and in it, we the women, saris tied over nose and mouth to keep out the burning. On the bare brown ground the chilies are fierce hills pushing into the sky's blue. Their scarlet sears our sleep. We pound them into powder red-acrid as the mark on our foreheads. All day the great wood pestles rise and fall, rise and fall, our heartbeat. Red spurts into the air, flecks our arms like grains of dry blood. The color will never leave our skins. We are not like the others in the village below, glancing bright black at men when they go to the well for water. Our red hands burn like lanterns through our solitary nights. We will never lie breathless under the weight of thrusting men, give birth to bloodstained children. We are the makers of chili paste. Through our fingers the mustard oil seeps a heavy, melted gold. In it chili flecks swirl and drown. We mix in secret spices, magic herbs, seal it in glowing jars to send throughout the land. All who taste our chilies must dream of us, women with eyes like rubies, hair like meteor showers. In their sleep forever our breath will blaze like hills of chilies against a falling sun.
-- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
