CREATE - Market Arrangement

Coming home from the market here in Paris, I am always carrying huge bags of fruits and vegetables for the week.

It’s purely for the beauty of it, to be able to admire the colours, shapes and textures of the fruits, vegetables and herbs, which are as pretty as a bouquet of flowers.

Ideas that we love. Ideas to try:

• Use any pretty vessel, or even a few of them in different sizes:
  a large oval platter or big, shallow bowl, a small bowl for garlic cloves with a vase of herbs. Really, whatever you have, arrange them on your counter in a way that makes you smile.

• Placing herbs in a glass or vase:
  to lengthen the life of your herbs, cut the bottom of the stems and place in water as you would do with flowers. They also look pretty on a counter and if you really want longevity, keep them in the fridge like this.

• Arranging by sweet to savoury:
  On larger platters I like to generally move from sweet fruits and end with garlic and onions. It’s for visual reasons, a peach doesn’t seem as appetizing to pick up if it’s next to a head of garlic, though these vegetables can sometimes impart their pungent flavours and I like my peaches to taste like peaches:)

• Placing the larger, heartier items first on the bottom, then decorating with smaller, more fragile ones on top:
  This is a practical tip but also, visually, it’s nice to see a few cherries dangling over apples or a vine or cherry tomatoes draped over avocados.

• Little cups:
  I like to place little cups on or beside an arrangement depending on the size of the platter. It mixes up the textures and can be practical for little groupings: glasses of wooden spoons, cups of stray cloves, I even have a little glass to hold my rings while I cook.

• Using dry, pantry items:
  Make half the arrangement “pantry” items like onions, garlic, ginger, or things that do not need to be refrigerated. This is for the longevity of the arrangement and it gives us time to go through our vegetables before they spoil.