Things aren't always as they appear!

Somehow I stumbled across a series of still life photographs by Carl Warner. They're posted on the BBC site and titled "In Pictures: From edible to incredible."

We're still recovering from our colds so this was a perfect way to spend some time trying to name all the foods that appear. And what imaginative ways some of them are used! That salmon sea is gorgeous!

After examining the 8 photos till we thought we had named everything (and I bet we still missed some!), we moved on to a book on DS's shelves, Look-Alikes by Joan Steiner, that used to be a favorite of his and still is a fav of mine. He may be outgrowing it but we still managed to put our heads together over it long enough to examine the cover photo and several of the inside spreads in detail. And he would have kept going but it was time to start dinner so the book had to come into the kitchen.

The good thing about Steiner's books (she has at least one more in the same vein and a series for younger children, too) is that she includes a list at the back of the book of all the everyday items used to create the pictures. Looking through the book always reminds me of the stories my mother would tell me when I was little. They were all about "the teeny weeny people" who used thimbles for washtubs and coral bell blossoms for cups. She was never at a loss for naming ordinary things and how they could be turned to use by those enterprising little people. We may have to bring the stories back -- I bet she'll tell him a few if we ask.