Peeking into the rock

Apple or Asian Pear Fuzz

You must have a centrifugal juicer. When you juice the fruits, a scum forms on top of the juice -- not the pomace in the juicer bin (or if you are lucky and have an ejecting juicer, in the ejection container). This is froth like seafoam that forms, I suppose, because air is passing forcefully through the juice as it is centrifuged, and there is pectin and some cellulose to give the bubbles strength.

You skim the scum and put it in a bowl. You mix sour cream, whipped cream, sweet cream, yogurt, or ice cream to taste. You may sweeten it with the dregs of old-fashioned apricot jam -- the kind with apricot kernels in the bottom to complicate the flavor -- and/or the sugar left over from candying citrus peels. You may also add vanilla, if you can find it on the shelf or wherever in the kitchen your child has left it after making orange julius.

Asian pear juice, it turns out, is just like apple juice. Nice enough. Though asian pears are gritty like underripe Bosc pears.

Emma's Jason's mother has too many asian pears. What else can you do with too many asian pears? I don't think pome fruit makes good fruit leather, after my experience with the Bartlett pears. And I already have canned pears and pear-applesauce. I don't think I want to can the juice. But I may make wine with it if I end up with Robin's extra fruit: I have another carboy, and the directions for apple/ or asian-pear wine are much easier to follow than the directions for cider, and when you're done, you can use wine bottles which are easier to seal than beer bottles and also easier for me to get. Also, I made five trays of peach leather yesterday, racked the wine, and went to the Labor Day picnic. Next year I'll go on time. The day before yesterday we went to the Begonia Festival, just for the parade -- a bunch of constructions covered with begonias literally floating down the creek whose storm drains I monitor all summer! About which more elsepost, later.

At the labor day picnic I learned that two of my favorite politicians are eyeing John Laird's Assembly seat. This is awkward. California has an idiotic term-limits law which will mean that we'll lose a lot of our best -- most honest, most literate, most experienced, most hardworking -- politicians in the next few years, so that we'll have nothing but newbies up there in Sacramento soon. John Laird is one of the best in all the ways that matter. So the only reason, for example, that Emily Reilly is in the pre-race, is that she wants to go to Sacramento for a term before she retires (she's sixty). She makes a point for herself, and she's mostly done a good job here in town. Bill Monnig is from Salinas and is likewise a good fellow and Emily won't speak badly of him. (she says "Bill's good, but . . . I want to do it!) The silver lining? Term limits come up on the ballot for this February and we get to try and vote them out. In which case John will run again (he owns that seat as long as he can legally run and he desires it -- even people who hate his politics and sexual orientation, around here, appreciate his professionalism and attention to local needs, and I'm not talking about pork,I'm talking about real needs). In that case, Emily will have to find another "last thing" to do, and Bill will have to find something else too.

It's less than a week till Frank goes to Prague!! He's working tremendously long hours on the ambulance and looking for a physics textbook to cram with. And all we can find is the Cartoon Guide, some weird paperback volume 2, and a forty-year old Fundamentals! If you're local to us and you have a more current college Physics text, email me, okay?