Broccoli Ornament

A hand-blown glass broccoli ornament captures the vegetable that spent decades as the thing everyone ate around and has recently been vindicated by high heat and olive oil, rendered here in painted glass with detail that says someone finally noticed. Each floret is individually shaped and colored by a Chive painter working freehand, building the crown cluster by cluster until the whole head reads as unmistakably broccoli from across the room — charred-edge converts and reluctant children alike will recognize it on sight. The stalk tapers into a clean brass hook, ready for a prominent branch where the redemption arc can be appreciated properly. Chive opened its glass ornament workshop in 2004, and every year since, the painters have treated humble vegetables with the same care usually reserved for far more glamorous subjects on the shelf. The Royal Ontario Museum maintains galleries full of natural specimens rendered in precious materials. This broccoli belongs in that tradition, minus the velvet rope.