WHAT WE ATE: JULY

Fruit: Bananas 8 kilos, Peaches 3.5 kilos, Plums 2 kilos

Vegetables: Eggplant 5 kilos, Tomatoes 8 kilos, Cabbage 2 heads (which doesn’t sound like much, but it makes a LOT of coleslaw)

Other: Yoghurt 11 kilos, Powdered milk 2.5 kilos (because The Beast can’t keep real milk from going bad), Hummus 2.5 kilos

Big winner:  Yoghurt, of course.  We ate a lot of smoothies this past month as I enjoyed my new blender and our appetite dwindled due to the heat.

What’s in season: Glorious, marvelous peaches, pears, and as of last week figs.  I wasn’t even sure what they were the first time I saw them in the market, my main previous experience being in the comforting but very square form of Fig Newtons (a childhood favorite).  Fresh figs have either pale green or dark brown skin and a beautiful pink flesh, and a shape similar to the domes on top of the Kremlin.  They don’t taste anything like Fig Newtons, but I like them anyway.  Apparently in another week or two there will appear white figs, which are smaller and sweeter.

WHAT WE ATE: JUNE

I think an interesting monthly feature of The AmerArab Life will be What We Ate, highlighting what items featured most often in our diet, as well as particular things that were in season during that time.*  For the month of June, our big winners were:

Fruit: Bananas—6 kilos (no surprise here; Hungry Husband doesn’t eat much else in the way of fruit).

Vegetables: Zucchini—5 kilos, Tomatoes 5.5 kilos.

Others: Hummus—1.5 kilos, Bread—24 pieces

But, the big winner (in terms of weight as well as frequency of being purchased) was: Yoghurt, with a whopping 8 kilos.

Things that came into season in June were peaches and plums, molokheyya (watch for a future post on this incredible vegetable), and, of course, tomatoes.  Big, lovely, red, fragrant tomatoes that hold on to the faintest taste of earth no matter how well they are washed.  It doesn’t get any more summery than that.

*Perhaps you wonder how I know such things…although no one would accuse me of being OCD, I do like statistics and keep track of every shopping trip on an Excel spreadsheet showing what I bought, the quantity, and the cost.  It helps me anticipate how much stuff should cost so that I have less chance of getting ripped off.  Plus, I think it’s interesting.