Lettuce, Live, & Learn.......

Photo by Gabriel Fenoy ( COURIER photo)

Juicy Birthday to YOU!

Today Aleli turned................. bigger years old! It was to be the juiciest birthday to date!

Juicy surprises await just inside this news wrapped box......

While Aleli, Kai, Eden and Julian slept, James and Keoni ventured across college campuses to pluck the first golden fruits of the morning. This sumptuous birthday breakfast spread was lovingly baked, grated, browned, hand squeezed and cooked by James while the birthday girl slept. We awoke to oatmeal covered in baked sweetened peaches & milk, homemade hash browns with a pepper from our backyard, a lovely omelet and the freshest hand squeezed orange juice. What a great way to start a birthday!

After a tasty breakfast and some afternoon gift giving, we made plans to visit the gorgeous, fruit tree rich home of some old friends of the family. Rick and Kristie Smith live just north of us by less than a mile and enjoy a life that is heavy with fruits. Their half acre historical property has well over a dozen fruit trees and other edibles. This includes a variety of lemons, tangelos, grapefruits, oranges, persimmons (so pretty they have inspired art!), avocado, grapes, raspberries, tomatoes, herbs, etc. This is absolutely beautiful land. Anyway, they had invited us to pick as many lemons as we wanted. In the 11 years they've lived there, they have NEVER been able to consume all the fruit that their yard produces. And they told us in all that time they've never bought any citrus, avocado or persimmon either ................ they just didn't need to.......ever! We could take a truck load and they wouldn't feel the loss! So it was off to the Smith's.........

We were greeted at the gate by Kristie who immediately welcomed us into her kitchen and offered us some fresh baked cookies. One of the first things we noticed was her collection of vintage glass citrus juicers hanging in two of her kitchen windows. They looked like jewels glistening in the sun. Very cool.

Kristie gave us a quick tour of her charming and well appointed home and then it was off to the gardens. We walked the grounds as she shared some of the history of the place and, more importantly, the history of the trees. She knew these trees. Watched their growth and changes. She ate from these trees. Kristie explained about the different seasonal changes she observed in the fruits and the leaves. She sounded like a poet at times. Her favorite tree is the persimmon tree you can see from her great big windows. There was a vibrant oil pastel still life she had created of these persimmons hanging in her breakfast room. She makes a favorite steamed pudding every year from these fruits that people rave about.

Keoni gives Baby Juju a leg up to pick the low hanging fruits that are just inches from his finger tips. Julian hasn't picked much tree fruit until today. Most of it was too far out of reach. He was mesmerized.

Just across from the kitchen window Keoni spots a bounty of heavy, ripe grapefruits. An audible "oooooo" escapes his lips.

These grapefruits would later be devoured whole and juiced into a wonderful disappearing beverage within hours of bringing them home. Sooo good.... I can not tell you!!!!

More "oooooo"s and "aaaaaaah"s as our young adventurer discovers there really are avocados WAY up there. They are looking good, but it will be a couple more months before they are truly ready for the eating. Then there will be a few months of an avocado glut and the cycle will continue. For now, he waits and wonders.

James gathers some of the lemons he picked into our bags. There were so many different varieties.... some very sweet, some slightly pear shaped, some with smooth skin, some with rumply skin and then some very classic looking lemons. The smell of both the lemons and the branches was intoxicating. James actually ate a whole lemon standing right under the tree.... it was that sweet!

Julian and Eden inspect the fruits under the shade of a tree. Each of them picked their fair share. We really must stop picking fruit at high noon..... it's sooo hot!

Even with the bags and bags and baskets of fruit we picked, we barely put a dent in the tree's supply. It really boggles the mind how much fruit can come from just one tree!

No joke......... we couldn't fit all the fruit in the sink for washing....... when life gives you this many lemons, you fill the bath tub THEN make lemonade!

More pix and text coming to this posting...... stay tuned..............

Sticking to Carrots.....

These organic carrots were a $1 a bag.

It only takes a few minites to create carrot sticks that could run up to $3 a bag.

Some after dinner accounting to see how much green is left.

The tally of the Georges reveal $14 to go for 3 more days. One of those being a B-day.

"we can do it, yes we can, we can do it, with a pan"

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Peaches & Potato Salad.....

A coworker offers up some home picked peaches

boiled potatoes that were strained, mixed, and seasoned with salt & pepper.

Step 2: Add hard boiled eggs

Step 3: add sweet pickles

Step 4: now with pickles sliced and mustard added

Step 5: add desired amount of Real Mayo and mix it all up.

Final Step: Get Julian approval!

Orange you glad I said free

What to do with our substantial orange boodle from yesterday? The choice was obvious! Juice it. We made the best fresh squeezed orange juice this side of anywhere to kick off our day of freebies.

It's all smiles and sunlight as we break into the first round of nature's bounty.

Baby Juju gets the first taste of this perfect beverage.

All part of a complete breakfast. Box of organic granola on sale = $2.

This fruit was posilootly bursting with juice!

The kids toast to the day ahead.

If you can't eat like a rock star..... eat WITH one! Our friend Ray Collins of the Mothers of Invention ( Frank Zappa, Ray Collins, the 60's.... you remember ) shares and shares alike.

In the late morning, we made our way into the village on foot. We had plans for some corporate freebies and some tree exploration. Just as we entered the village, we bumped into our friend Ray. He was enjoying a gorgeous hunk of watermelon in his car parked under the shade of a tree. He had just been to the farmer's market. He asked if we liked watermelon since he had received a free watermelon with the purchase of a new variety. There was no way he was going to finish it all....... that's a humongous piece of fruit! He then mentioned that the watermelon was....................... yellow. Ok. Alright. Ok, so it's yellow. That could be edible. We are always up for an adventure so we accepted his offer. He found a water source, washed up the melon and cut great big slices with his pocket knife. We all stood on the street corner on the hottest day of the summer, sucking down juicy yellow melon and catching up with each other. Now that was an unexpected freebie and a great visit with a cool guy. (we would see him later in the day with another unexpected freebie...). Thanks Ray.

Next destination was Jamba Juice to redeem a free breakfast smoothie with a coupon we were given. Before Jamba we wanted to stop by next door at Le Pain Quotidien for one of their outrageous organic macaroons. It's was only a $1.10 and well within budget. The restaurant was taking a survey that day and offering a FREE baguette, and a FREE jute bag to every patron who completed a survey. We're noticing a lot more PQ bags around town.

Eden turns in a completed survey that mom filled out and takes a yummy Belgian brownie sample to go.

Keoni wants in on the photo too, but really just wanted a brownie sample as well...

Here we have an expired coupon for a free yogurt smoothie. Would they take it?.....

Julian couldn't wait to crack into that Le Pain Quotidien baguette. He seizes the day as the rest of us are distracted at the Jamba Juice counter with negotiating old promotionals.

Success! It's hard to say no to a troop of cute thirsty kids! Houston we have lift off.

What's more, they had a bunch of full sized baked goods that needed to go out as samples. Woohoo! Free smoothies, cookies and sweet loafs! Yummmm!

The kids take their pick.

Mmmmmm, we love smoothies! So good on a hot day, especially if you've just walked a couple miles in the noon day sun.

In the evening, we drove to James brother Shawn's house for dinner. We had a delicious dinner of turkey burritos, complete with beans, CHEESE!, rice, grilled eggplant and tasty roasted peppers grown from their garden. We enjoyed their hospitality and visited with Shawn, our sister in law (Elyse), niece (Lauren), nephew (Zach) and James sister ( "JJ" ). The food was delicious! The kids were thrilled to have a wide array of beverages offered. We enjoyed even more great big chunks of watermelon for dessert. We love this fruit! Thanks guys!

After dinner Aleli sat in the studio while Shawn took video and photos using his light polarizer and the rest of the gang hung out watching recordings of the Olympic opening ceremonies. Shawn has invented this amazing light polarizer and needed a subject to photograph for a demo to put on his new website. So what better way to eat for free than to barter. (for some of the evenings pictures and to check out his revolutionary invention visit http://motionlightdesign.com/Images.html )