Behind the Design: Caper Flower

Consider if you will, the caper. Take a picture in your mind and tell me what you see. Perhaps a smallish bottle at the back of your fridge -- undisturbed since the Clinton Administration -- half-filled with a murky brine and some smallish, green-brown... things. OK maybe that's overstating it. You last had them at a restaurant. Barely noticed them there glistening hopefully atop your nicoise salad.

Well, like most things amazing, capers (or the ones you buy at the supermarket) have been ruined by mass production and consumption. Did you know that the caper is actually a flower bud that, if not harvested, explodes into a beautiful purple and white firecracker flower? We discovered them, erupting from a stone wall on Sifnos, and were as surprised as any to learn their true identity in a wildflower guide.

That's the story of our caper flower design, taken from this photo we snapped of one growing just off the path.

By the way, the mason jars of harvested, edible capers that we bought on Sifnos were amazing and seriously addictive. They're dried in the sun, soaked and ready to eat in a few months. A final story... we shared a jar with a friend who manages a snooty restaurant in Santa Fe. He was at work and immediately went table to table handing them to guests exclaiming, "Aren't these the most amazing things you've ever eaten?!"