In California we hung out extensively with everyone we know, celebrated at Heather and Tony's wedding, and ate at all the places we miss. We also brought home this giant fruit bowl of tiny, rock-hard avocados, one of which had ripened enough that I could eat it for breakfast this morning. It was pretty great.

On Sunday we went to the hot tub and sauna at the Tea House Spa, and ok, you should CERTAINLY go there. If you want a food-oriented excuse, they give you tea to drink in the tub. We always get jasmine. Also, there is no better tasting water than the metal pitcher you drink after sweating out all your body's moisture for 45 minutes. If you want to experience water, this is the way to do it.

Afterward: dollar store, farmer's market, beach. John bought me a tube of Necco wafers, which I proclaimed were disgusting yet continued to gradually eat until we got off the plane home. At the farmer's market we bought two baskets of strawberries and four huge cups of meyer lemonade. They were stunning and awesome. We stood around eating and drinking them outside the dollar store, where two different random people commented on our strawberries ("You guys are eating healthy! Those are full of antioxidants! But you know what really has a lot of antioxidants? Welch's 100% grape juice.") and the Necco wafers ("I'm probably twice as old as you, and I still had those as a kid!") Food: the great equalizer.

Then we went to Ben's house and picked a massive branch of the loquats growing on the tree in his backyard. So, really, I got to do every single thing I missed from CA, even down to urban foraging. Why not take advantage of the awesome spontaneous local fruit and Chrissy's juicer to create loquat juice explosion?

We did it. Well, mostly Chrissy and Ben did it, while John dinked on his laptop and I took lots of pictures. This one sets the tone for Chrissy's house pretty perfectly.

Loquat juice turns out to be fairly foamy. We mixed it with sparkling water and drank it out of exciting Goodwill champagne bowls in the middle of the afternoon. Yes: vacation.

In Brooklyn right now the local foraging seems to be all mulberries. I'm going to have to get on that. Yes: fruit.