Saved.

We’ve been selling heaps of our juicy lemony olive oil cake by the slice. On more than one occasion someone had a bite and by the time they got to their car, decided to walk back up to the porch for a second piece. We’ll make some more of that this week so we don’t run out. The lemons come from our friend Scott’s place where we go out and pick cherries each June, and eat exceptionally creamy almonds from his orchards all the rest of the year. The lemons are so fragrant, floral and incredibly juicy and he brings them each Thursday piled high in a big wine box. Of course, the seasonal nature of all good things means heavenly juicy lemon cake can’t last forever.

Abundance and ephemerality go hand in hand in the world of fruit, and working through all the lemons has Gabe making lemonade by the gallons. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. Gabe’s lemonade has a bit of a cult following around these parts, and his tried and true formula made it into my last cookbook. Luckily, we have plenty of friends passing through the household to drink it all, and more and more of them lately are the raucous teenagery sort, who seem to get the impression that this is some kind of fairy tale gingerbread house filled with lemonade and cookies all the time. I suppose in a way, that’s true. In other episodes of the glut of springtime fruit, the first wave of strawberries has come in bringing our old friend Patty the strawberry lady from out Watsonville way to visit us on a Thursday after market closes and trade some unsold berries for 2 or 3 slabs of focaccia to go for the long drive home, and her family waiting for her there.

In between oven loads of bread I chopped a kilo of strawberries and set to macerate with lovely lemon zest and sugar in the warm kitchen. With the ovens off I can sterilize my jars in their ambient heat while I make some jam. Fruit suspended beautifully in time. Friends, community, the earth, and a little work provides it’s multitudes in ever unfolding waves. I can’t see into the future, who will eat these loaves, this jam with me, or pass into the front door and drink this lemonade, and where they will go after they leave, carrying something with them.

This place is a small portal that unfolds infinite geometries of care. Abundance comes in, settles at this hearth for it’s momentary respite of breath, work, and heat, and then it goes out again to transmute it’s small joys into the hearts of a few good souls who keep this place of simple dreams alive.