A few months back I made what Greg and Lucy Malouf describe in their lovely book Turquoise as  Fava Bean Pate.  It was good, but it didn't have the delicate pea, or should I say legume, green tint theirs did. I bought fresh broad beans, shelled them, pod and bean skin, and made it again. The colour was wonderful. Musing on the time consuming task of taking off the bean skins, and recollecting a message once left by my friend Helen M, set out in fronds of Boston fern and possibly the most beautiful and witty message anyone has ever left for me, the idea of an aphoristic poem, depicted in its own substrate, came to me. The slightly risque content, that the beans here are both signifiers and the thing itself and the dreadful pun, and that the poem ends up as a smooth pale pate gives food for thought.