If it is nine hundred degrees in the kitchen and everything in the kitchen is sticky, then it must be peach season.

Three more canners full of peaches have been put up. That makes twenty eight quarts so far this year. I think it might last until mid-winter if I'm lucky. Considering that Simon finally tried a bite peach in syrup tonight and promptly gobbled up half of the peach, I think I might not be so lucky. I have a quarter of a bushel left, and I want to make an utterly divine peach salsa out of that. I should have bought another half bushel from the peach delivery people yesterday. I will just have to hope that the fruit guy can give me a good price on another box or two. One bushel so far, and I have not even made a peach pie yet.

On a related note, I have been trying to get Vincent to expand the fruits that he will eat. Last year, it was only sliced apples, bananas and grape jam. This spring, he added strawberry jam and alpine strawberries. Doesn't that figure? A fruit that is the size of an m&m and not very prolific, he decides that he will eat. I'm working on expanding that patch in the garden.

Yesterday, he had to eat five spoonfuls of applesauce with dinner, and he acted like I was torturing him. Today, he had to eat one slice of a fresh peach (not even a quarter, just a slice). After eating the peach, he declared it horrible, but then said that he loves applesauce.

Go figure.

I'm going to keep on the forced fruit trying for a while longer. I need him to eat something more sustainable than bananas (oh, it kills me to buy a bunch imported, monoculture fruit every week!) and while apples are great in the fall, to buy them in the spring and summer means I'm getting imported fruits or the tail end of last year's stored harvest. I want that child to eat a little more seasonally. At least with applesauce, I put up quarts of that every year, so it is a more sustainable option.

I wonder, could I get him to eat blueberries or even pears?

Conversation with Simon last night:

Me: Time to be quiet and go to sleep, bop.

Simon: I quiet. I no talk. See, I quiet, mama. Lay in my bed; I quiet now mama. I no talk.

Me: Shhhh.

Simon: Mama, I wiwy* quiet, see? I no talk. Lay with me now, mama. I quiet!

Repeat three more times. I think he misunderstands the meaning of "quiet", eh?


* wiwy = really for those of you who do not speak Simonese.

I'm thinking about names today.

Limburger cheese is received with turned up noses. Semi-soft, stinky "artisan" cheeses are placed on tasting trays and given respect.

Sauerkraut, gross. Kimchi? Intriguing and exotic. Both are fermented cabbage.

Can I interest you in a pair of shower shoes? How about these cute flip-flops from Old Navy?

Would you wear a tummy shaper or Spanx? Grandma did too, but she just called it a girdle.

Dinner might be carne macinato e tagliatelle or perhaps we'll just call it Hamburger Helper.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
~ William Shakespeare