Beauty

How do you react when you're confronted suddenly by unimaginable beauty, the kind that takes your breath away?

I recall a friend's words when she was on the set of a film shot in Paris, and a male actor so gorgeous he almost made her eyes hurt appeared before her barefoot.

"Even your feet are perfect!" she blurted out. How can that be?

Last night, minding my own peculiar business in my neighborhood Safeway, I rounded a corner and suddenly encountered this type of breath-taking beauty. Now, I know what you're thinking: that I bumped into that lovely Asian woman from Hong Kong fussing over the price of Tattinger's or that sexy African-American security guard muttering about how she couldn't scare nobody, nowhere, no way.

But you're wrong. The object of my lust in this case was the quintessential green bell pepper.



Tonight I sliced its rounded curves off with a sharp knife, and placed them on a pork roast that I baked ever so delicately with onions, red potatoes, garlic, and spices. I also served a fresh salad of baby carrots, daikon, and Persian cucumber.

Meanwhile, other objects of beauty sit on the counter between my kitchen and the living room. These are the tiny things I brought back from Japan.



Of course, in my mind, the overriding sense of visual perfection these days are the images emerging from Portland of my tiny grandson, James, and his lovely mother, my daughter Sarah.