Pink

"It's just red's sorry, weak cousin" Beth Fantaskey

Pink isn't just a color it's an Attitude too!” - Miley Cyrus

I walked back from the shops today. It was such a perfect day and as I walked I mulled over various ideas for this blog, and then I saw this amazing camelia tree (I think it was a camelia), with a carpet of fallen pink petals underneath. It was such a vibrant pink that I just had to take a photograph or two). It really was this colour.

But how to make a blog post out of it? There are a few general things about pink that I could say - and I will try, but yes there is pink food and drink. Now what could be said about that? The more I thought about it and the more I searched for pictures and ideas I found that there are actually rather a lot of things that can be said about pink. And those two quotes at the top of the page - never mind where they came from! - sum up the two extremes of thinking about pink. So here are some of them.

Breast cancer - pink has been adopted by Breast Cancer organisations all over the world. I remember going on a cancer walk in England. It's a fun thing to do. Everyone in crazy pink clothes and wigs, doing their thing for a cause. So this aspect of pink is the Attitude thing. I guess pink was chosen because pink is a female colour and it's a happy colour too - finding something joyful out of tragedy?

Pink and little girls - well big girls too - walk into any kids clothes store or kids clothing section of a department store and it's a sea of pink. The same could be said of all the accessories they gather for school and life as well - stationery, drink bottles, pencils, pens, sheets, beds, chairs - you name it - it's pink. It's actually very hard to find anything that's not pink. Well, I have noticed that of late there might be a bit more in other colours. And little boys would not be seen dead in pink. How did this happen? Fairly recently apparently and not always consistently. Since WW1 it's been up and down for pink for girls, - it was the boy colour once, and blue was for girls. And I suspect that we might be on the cusp of a change away from it. It's still pretty much a sea of pink in those shops though isn't it?

Pink and nature, and romance - well as one quote I saw pointed out - pink is the colour of dawn and sunset - always romantic times of day. And romantic paintings are often a pretty pink colour. It's gentle, and let's face it - it's beautiful. And there are so many shades - from very pale to almost red.

Pink food - well this is a food blog, so I'd better get back to food. If you search for pink food in Google images what you mostly get is a sea of cupcakes and macaroons and ice-cream. Very girly in the context of today's girly fixation with pink. But there's a lot of other pink food out there and here are some pictures of some of it.

Off the top of my head, there are also prawns and other shellfish, pink grapefruit, beetroot (when cooked and combined with cream or yoghurt or something pale, some rhubarb. There are lots of pink things - you don't just have to put pink colouring into icing sugar. I assume, as a paler shade of red, they also share some of the health benefits of red food. And the breast cancer people certainly make a big thing of serving pink food at breast cancer parties. As do little girls of course. When it was our ruby wedding anniversary I served salmon and ham I remember.

Pink drinks - last but not least.

We are about to have a holiday in the south of France - home of rosé and indeed this is often the best of the local wines down there. And it comes in so many different shades of pink - from almost orange to almost red. And pink champagne might well be the ultimate in frivolity, lightness and joie de vivre.