Last week my great letter writing friend John Watson sent me an article from the New Yorker on The Hidden Allures of Root Vegetables by Jane Kramer. Among the root vegetables she discursed on was the deep-purple carrot, the ancestor of our orange carrots, which people in the old days eschewed. Kramer, who speculates their lack of popularity might be because they bleed in soups etcetera, obviously has not cooked them. They don't bleed, or at least these modern purple ones I found in Coles Big Bear Supermarket last week didn't. That people regarded them with suspicion was demostrated clearly when someone in my house of tender years pointed at them and cried, "Witch Carrots!!"  Really, I bought them to draw as they colour was a bit hypnotic. Here the drawing is superimposed over the scan, so it can see the shadow if its former self.