1. It is early morning, the light gathering indistinct at the window, but breaking open, above the buildings. Scooping down into the dark secret of the ceramic cannister, and fishing up the beans–the sudden violent sound of the grinder, in the kitchen. Into the paper funnel, and the water reaching boiling on the stove, comes to join them. Brown, you think. The rising exhalation is deep and brown.

2. Baby bok choy, blanching in a water-laden tilt skillet. The leaking steam is pale green. You say this to your chef. He moves further down the line.

3. Earl Grey tea, in the chipped mug. It is afternoon. The steam is Wedgewood blue.

4. A newly-broken-open baked potato, waiting for butter. Pale yellow.

5. Shredded ginger, lemon, bubbling in a pot of water. First, in the house on the hill on a dirt road, high in the woods of Western Massachusetts. Then, a kitchen in Brooklyn. Both times: off-white, into deep gold.

6. Oatmeal, in bowls made by someone you know, before riding the sled down to the bottom of the hill, where the cars wait to be dug out of the snow. Deep rosy red. (the color of your cheeks).

7. Fish, laying in blind packets across a hot grill, with secret fatty slivers of Portuguese sausage. Clams, hidden in the coals. Their open and steaming mouths: silver. Like the ozone undersides of leaves, before rain.

8. Simple syrup, citrus going clear within it: Rose.

9. Scones: the color of pale straw. August. Clotted cream.

10. Bread new enough for the crust to hurt you as you touch it: steam the imagined color of Marie Antoinette’s garter ribbons. The country ones. Not the town.