1. Fun with Math

There are 16 cups in a gallon (I knew that). And there are 16 tablespoons in a cup (I didn't know that -- or, if I did, I had forgotten it so completely that I didn't even know I ever knew it).

This means that, if you have a recipe given in terms of tablespoons per cup, like, oh, I don't know, maybe the recipe for lemonade from The Joy of Cooking, and you want to scale it up (because what would be the point of making lemonade by the cup?) you can use the same numbers and just replace the tablespoons with cups and the cups with gallons. No multiplication involved (except for the fraction of a teaspoon of salt).

The Joy of Cooking suggests a range for the amount of sugar to add, depending, I guess, on how sweet you want your lemonade and how sour your lemons are to start with. Even the low end of the sugar range called for twice as much sugar as lemon juice. Which seemed like a lot to me (is this lemonade, or sugar-water with a hint of lemon?), but who am I to question The Joy of Cooking?

The first batch of lemonade, made by the recipe, wasn't too sweet, but we all agreed it could stand a sugar reduction. So I cut the sugar by a third for the second batch, which was an improvement. But GrandDad still thinks it's sweeter than necessary. For the next batch, I think I'll just mix straight lemon juice and water, unsweetened, and prepare simple syrup separately so we can sweeten to taste. (Ooh, look -- I can add mint or basil to the syrup! That sounds good!)

2. Zucchini Apple Bread Redux

I made a second batch of this bread, since GrandDad and I went through the first three loaves in a little more than a week. This time I substituted applesauce for half of the oil. The resulting bread more closely resembled the picture on the recipe page than the first batch had, but the texture was somewhat more dense. It's still very good, but I think I'll switch back to the oil as called for in the future.

3. Figs, figs, figs

Anybody got any good ideas about what to do with an extravagance of figs? We have six fig trees, and they've all ripened at once! And I still haven't caught up with the nectarines...