It is August. Every weekend I bring home huge armfuls of very exciting peak-season fruit and vegetables. Three baskets of organic strawberries for $5. Bags of mix and match nectarines and plums for a dollar a pound. Tiny, heavy, stripy French cantaloupes.

There's kind of a lot of fruit in the refrigerator, so I did something out of character. I scooped the flesh out of half a melon, then hulled and halved six or eight strawberries. They went into the blender. So did a couple of ice cubes.

Thirty seconds later, I was pouring myself an entire pint glass of strawberry-cantaloupe smoothie. I ate it for lunch. It was great.

I don't recall ever making a smoothie before. My normal idea of lunch is leftover vegetable-bean melange over a grain, warmed up in the toaster oven with a splash of water to resteam. Otherwise, I usually make tacos or a sandwich. Those three options by far dominate; they're fast, easy, and substantial. The smoothie is definitely fast and easy, but substantial?

For most of July I plain didn't have any appetite, and it wasn't even that hot here. Our theory is that I've reacting against the recent unfortunate frequency of restaurant food. Grease and salt and heavy-textured sauces, either cream or cornstarch: gross. My palate couldn't take it anymore.

I could take the smoothie, though. I made another one a few days later, with the same ingredients plus some chopped chard. It was similarly great. Today when I went to the farmer's market I brought home three pints of blackberries for $3. I have three overripe bananas cut up and stored neatly in the freezer. We still have strawberries and cantaloupe. I'm clearly going to be eating (drinking?) more of these.