Peaches, Plums, My David, and David Sedaris

We've been eating a lot more fruit since it is summer. Actually, we ate fruit in the winter too. It was just more apples and pears - less variety, and more expensive. When we came here in June (winter), it cost $2.48 for one lime. Bananas were $12 per kilo (about $5 per pound). I am not lying! Now, limes are 50 cents each and bananas are about $1.50 per pound. I splurged on the limes, but we didn't eat bananas for about four months. Anyway, food costs are seasonal, which is a good thing because they are realistically tied to the supply/availability. Now we have summer fruits aplenty and we are loving the peaches, plums, mangos, pineapples, and 50 cent limes.

When it rains and the temperature goes down a little, we even turn on the oven and Mira bakes fruity desserts! She made a peach crumble with vanilla ice cream. Yum! She also made a plum kuchen (one of my favorites). Double yum!! They make plum kuchen at the Russian bakeries in St. Kilda in Melbourne. My mom used to make them too. I don't know where she got her recipe, but we use the one for Lightening Cake from the classic and wonderful Fanny Farmer Cookbook. If you can get a copy of this, do it. I use it mostly for the baking recipes because I don't eat meat, but it is a great stand-by for all basic cooking and food prep recipes. My copy is an old, torn up, paperback that I got from a used bookstore when I was in college, but the publishers price on it was $1.60.

David was gone to India for a week at the beginning of the month, and although he had heaps of delicious, vegetarian food, he didn't have any of the fruit. He managed to avoid any stomach problems, but did come home with a cold. He had a wonderful experience there, enjoying the conference, the culture, and most of all, the people that he met. Two of the nice women from the conference even took him shopping on the last day so he could get us lovely textile gifts. He brought us shawls, scarves, and tunics/tops. The places were connected to local artisans and co-ops so they have a beautiful handmade look to them, and they support the small businesses. The colors, the fabric textures, the block prints, and embroidery all have an artistic flair to them. Luckily, they all fit as well!

The other David in our news was David Sedaris. We all went to see him at the concert hall at the Opera House. I love his books and have laughed till I cried listening to him read on his audio books. If you don't know his work, go get any of his books or look for his short readings on NPR. He writes honestly about everyday life, family, travel, etc. We loved seeing him live. He had the whole place roaring with laughter. I wouldn't say it was rated R, but probably PG13.

Mira got her official notice of acceptance to the University of Sydney, and Valerie goes back to school in two weeks, so I am glad we have had this time as a family. It sounds like a cliche, but I watch time sweep by as they change and grow and become more separate from us. I am proud, happy, a little scared, and most of all, grateful. Life isn't always peaches and cream, but sometimes it is.