On Christmas Eve in this year of grace twenty twenty-four, my beloved and I are preparing a bewildering variety of vegetables.

In the photo: a kilogram of beet roots, plural in type and in quantity.

Elsewhere, half a kilo of black salsify, and an unknown quantity of celeriac, kohlrabi, and radishes.

All of it heaved out of the ground, this morning, at the allotment.