I’ve been eating a lot of chive flowers. (A lot, period.) This is a photo I took the other day with my phone. I was particularly struck by the cool bee shades…
I tend to put the flowers in our morning omelette or on top of lunch time Cobb salad (K’s phone in case provides handy scale–taken just before addition of flowers–hey, once the flowers are on no power in the ‘verse can stop me from eating):
Chive flowers are delicious: a delicate, aromatic, slightly onion-y taste, and a variety of colours (depending on how new they are–newer = darker and richer; though only on the plant. Once you pick them and tease them into their individual blossoms, they’re a uniform pale purple). I’m a sucker for brightly-coloured food. So I’ll be sad when the flowers are done. Which will be Really Soon Now.
Also coming Really Soon Now: me back to a regular blogging schedule. Just not quite yet. I still have a lot on my plate (not just food…).
But really. Soon now.
Nicola Griffith 
Actually, this has nothing to do with chive flowers or diet. I am curious how you had the guts/courage/intestinal fortitude or whatever to basically spend years working on a book like Hild on spec, rather than having a pre existing contract. That is against the modern grain . I imagine you could say you felt that confident about it and your skill, but could theoretically have had the much confidence back when you started it as well . It seems gutsy, which says a lot about you probably.
I'll answer this in its own blog post tomorrow.