The Violet Farm – Part 1: Purple Rows

"Only the ones that are fully open," said Mathieu. "And cut the stem short."

"How short?"

"Like this." He showed her, a tiny snip, a violet falling into the basket. "Gently. They bruise."

The farm was a handful of low fields on a hillside outside Toulouse, the rows of violets spread like a deep purple carpet under a pale March sky. The air was heavy with a soft, powdery fragrance. Claire, thirty-six, a pastry chef from Bordeaux with a flagship restaurant opening in May, knelt in the damp earth with a straw basket and a pair of scissors, and she had never felt so far from a kitchen.

Mathieu, thirty-nine, the grower, was lean, grey-eyed and slow-spoken, in a battered blue sweater with the sleeves pushed up. His family had grown violets on this hill for four generations. He had a small boy's pride in them and a grown man's patience.

"You'll be here long?" he asked.

"A day. Just to see the fields."

"A day is not enough to see a violet."

By the end of the afternoon the basket was full, and Claire's fingers smelled of sugar and spring. They drank tea on the farmhouse step with the sun going down behind the hill. A handful of violets lay between them on a clean cloth.

"I'd like to come back," said Claire.

"For the flowers?"

"For the harvest. Every day of it." She looked at him. "And maybe for the grower."

Mathieu was silent, pink to the ears. "I would like that," he said. "I would like that very much."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Candied Petals.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Candied Petals.