My mom brought me this from a recent trip to Australia:



You're supposed to put them in a champagne glass, pour champagne over, and watch them "bloom". Kind of like chrysanthemum tea, I guess. There are only 11 in the jar and they cost over $1 for each flower. We took them to Laura and Rob's house to play with them, but they didn't have champagne glasses so we used wine glasses. And we had cava, not champagne. First, we put the flowers in the glasses with some syrup. They were kinda wet and sticky.



Then, we poured Cava over and watched them bubble. Did they bloom? Uh, kind of. We were waiting for them to bloom but someone pointed out that by the time they bloomed fully the champagne would be flat and warm, so we didn't wait that much longer. Also, we were thirsty. The cava tastes really good with the syrup in it. Afterwards, you can eat the flowers- they taste, oddly enough, like cranberries and have a similar texture. Because of all the bubbles it's really hard to capture this process on film.



Apropos of nothing, after the cava adventures, we ate these steamed clams with bacon, white wine, and red onions. I've never been a clam person but consider me converted. It's also fun to watch them cook in the big pot- because as they steam open, it affects the physics of the whole pile of clams, so it looks like the pile is undulating. Added bonus!