The Joli Times

Food for Thought:

Aug 1:

"We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons."
~ Alfred E. Newman

Aug 2:

"As a child my dinner consisted of two choices: take it or leave it."
~ Buddy Hackett.

Aug 3:

I went into a McDonald's yesterday and said, 'I'd like some fries.' The girl at the counter said, 'Would you like some fries with that?' "
~ Jay Leno

Aug 4:

"The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found."
~ Calvin Trillin

Aug 5:

"He who eats alone, chokes alone."
~ Proverb

Aug 6:

“I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”
~ Wimpy

From Popeye cartoons. Line often uttered by Popeye's portly friend Wimpy. Of course, "Tuesday" would never come, and so Wimpy constantly secured himself a free lunch. Thus the line is used to jokingly indicate that one would like to "borrow" something without any real intention of ever paying you back.

Aug 7:

"Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good."

~Alice May Brock

Aug 8:

“In our society growing food ourselves has become the most radical of acts. It is truly the only effective protest, one that can —and will — overturn the corporate powers that be. By the process of directly working in harmony with nature, we do the one thing most essential to change the world — we change ourselves.”

~ Jules Dervaes

Aug 9:

At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied,

"Then let them eat cake"

~ Maria Theresa of Spain

Aug 10:

"If organic farming is the natural way, shouldn't organic produce just be called 'produce' and make the pesticide laden stuff take the burden of an adjective?"

~ Ymber Delecto

Aug 11:

" Serenely full, the epicure would say, Fate cannot harm me, I have dined today."

~ Sidney Smith (1771-1845)
an English writer

Aug 12:

"Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm."

~ Ambrose Bierce

Aug 13:

"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie."

~Jim Davis

Aug 14:

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well."

~ Virginia Woolf
in "A Room of Ones Own"

Aug 15:

"Nobody seems more obsessed by diet than our anti-materialistic, otherworldly, New Age spiritual types. But if the material world is merely illusion, an honest guru should be as content with Budweiser and bratwurst as with raw carrot juice, tofu and seaweed slime."~ Edward Abbey

Aug 16:

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

~ Forrest Gump

Aug 17:

"The food of one person will be sufficient for two, and the food of two people will be sufficient for four, and the food of four will be sufficient for eight".

~ Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)

Aug 18:

"If life deals you lemons, make lemonade."

~Anonymous

Aug 19:

“When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”

~Desiderius Erasmus

Aug 20:

“Food is our common ground, a universal experience.”

~James Beard

Aug 21:

"Bread not only to nourish the body, but the spirit as well. A bread best shared around a table and savoured amongst friends."

~ Alain Coumont

Aug 22:

"I don't eat junk foods and I don't think junk thoughts."

~Peace Pilgrim

Aug 23:

"I am proud to be an American. Because an American can eat anything on the face of this earth as long as he has two pieces of bread."

~ Bill Cosby

Aug 24

"If you can't feed a hundred people, than feed just one"

~Mother Teresa

Aug 25:

"Give us this day our daily taste. Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in and sauces which are never the same twice. Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have bread to blot it with. Give us pasta with a hundred fillings."

~Robert Farrar Capon

Aug 26:

"Enough is as good as a feast."

~ Mary Poppins... practically perfect in every way.

Aug 27:

"Did you ever stop to taste a carrot? Not just eat it, but taste it? You can't taste the beauty and energy of the earth in a Twinkie"

~Astrid Alauda

Aug 28:

"The freedom of man, I contend, is the freedom to eat."

~Eleanor Roosevelt

Aug 29:

"Eat Food, Not to Much, Mostly Plants"

~Michael Pollan

Aug 30th:

ALPHABET SOUP, The ABC's of our Learning Experiment.

This experiment has had multiple layers of learning. Each one of us is experiencing something new everyday. We are more aware of world hunger even though we are not hungry. We are testing our own boundaries, limits, comforts and learning every step or bite of the way. Here are some other words that come to mind:

ALPHABET SOUP:

A

appetite
abundance

B

budget
biodiversity

C

community
coupon

D

dinner
dishes

E

economics
eating

F

food
fruit

G

garden
groceries

H

home grown
health

I

ingredients
imagination more important

J

Jujube
juice

K

kitchen
Kool aid

L

local
lunch

M

money
mac & cheese

N

neighbors
noodles

O

organic
olive oil

P

potluck
Pitzer & Pomona garden

Q

quest
questioning

R

resourcefulness
rice

S

soup
serendipity

T

tomatoes
top ramen

U

universal
understanding

V

vegetables
village

W

water
waste

X

xeriscaping
xylem

Y

yummy
yield

Z

zucchini
zip car

Thursday, August 28

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!