Tell me again why chocolate cake gets all the love? 

Here I am, feeling like broccoli. Undesirable. And, doubtful.  

I mean, ever have an idea? Something in your head that just seems great? Until you go to actually do it?  Ideas in my head taste like chocolate cake. Fabulously tempting! But, put into reality, I'm worried: Am I only broccoli?

This blogsite, The Tipsy Tomato, is like that.  I thought about the idea for a year, and now I’m discouraged. Online, in front of you, it feels stupid. I feel stupid. My idea is broccoli. I’m broccoli. Alone in what I think is yummy. No one else wants to mash up psychotherapy with garden metaphors. Just me by myself. Broccoli leftover on a plate.

Then, I go out into my veggie garden this morning. I become hopeful again. Plants just keep growing, even though the celebrated summer sun has left them. Fallen autumn leaves try to hush the spirit of the thriving nasturtium, carrots, pac choi and still-holding-on beets and hot peppers. Two spring peas sprout on cleared compost, at will against winter’s timeline. A random soybean does the same. It pushes up towards the sky by itself. Late-blooomers like so many of us, they've a full hearted wish to grow, despite the cold nights' cynicism. 

Tumbles rubs against my leg, and I wonder about my Tipsy Tomato idea again. I tell myself, I should quit my efforts and get back to all else. And, I did. I turned to check for cabbage worms on the cheddar cauliflower, brussel sprouts, kale, and broccoli.

The broccoli! The broccoli blooms. And, as a first-time grower of brassicas, I didn’t know that it could, much less what color or shape flower it had hidden inside itself. Well-versed gardeners will caution that the broccoli isn't blooming; it's bolting, a dictated no-no; and that it's past harvest. Such a dispirited outlook.

To the contrary, the broccoli blooms as if to tell me how broccoli is the new chocolate cake. I tweeted it. I instagrammed it. I absorbed it. And, now I know: the next time I feel like less than chocolate cake, I'm going to recall how broccoli blooms. It fabulously blooms!

And, chocolate cake doesn't.