"Live each season as it passes;

Breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each" Henry David Thoreau

I'm not going to ask you to admire this painting, and I'm not even going to reflect upon it really - it's just that it's the starting point for today's post. No it's not even that - that's the above quote which accompanies the painting in my desktop diary/calendar - a new painting and quote to consider every day.

The painting is by Jan Davidsz de Heem - who is new to me - painted in the mid 17th century - which I guessed - and it's in the Uffizi Gallery, so I also guess that at some time somebody thought it was worth buying. Well it is very lush is it not and rather beautiful if you like that sort of thing? And hard to know what season we should consider here. All of them?

And my weekly diary has this from another unknown to me artist - Hippolyte Petitjean of which the Met says:

"Here he has left much of the paper blank between the bright dots of colour, creating an effect of sparkling sunlight on the trees, bridge and water."

And yes - influenced by Seurat. And yes I guess there is a bit of sparkle. Art lesson over - other than to say that my diaries - having been published overseas, tend to depict something associated to the season over there, so at the moment I'm getting summer. Ditto for the foodie newsletters that I get. Ottolenghi in his latest newsletter was seemingly a bit overwhelmed by the heatwave over there in Britain, beginning by saying:

"I want to eat ice cream and cold noodles when all I can think about is how unbearable it is outside. I want a salad and a cold soup and to avoid, by all means, switching the oven on."

This disconnect with the seasons, which goes deeper than what people are coping with on different halves of the planet. For me - even though I have lived in Australia since 1969 I still connect the month of August with summer holidays, not the last official days of winter. And the same goes for every month - in that it means other than it actually does down under.

Here in Melbourne - you probably know the phrase associated with our hometown - "four seasons in one day" - which leads to even more confusion - today we have something like spring, although it is technically winter. The sun shines, the sky is clear blue, the wattles bloom a brilliant yellow and the temperature has been in the mid to high teens - perhaps an early summer's day in Britain?

Ottolenghi is right though - the food we eat also tells us what season it is. Ice-cream in summer, soup in winter - but we can always kid ourselves and eat ice-cream in winter and soup in summer. Will that make us feel more summery in winter and wintry in summer? And of course because of year-round availability of most fresh foods, seasons blur.

And anyway what about the rest of the world?I can't quite remember them all now from my school geography lessons, but there are several different climates in the world, and none of them have the same four seasons structure.

And let's face it, neither has Australia itself. The Aborigines, I believe, have six seasons for Melbourne, and there are at least four - probably more - climate zones across the continent.

However, really it was the quote that caught my eye, as it were. I get the feeling that Thoreau was rather glum with those ending words: "resign yourself to the influences of both". Although to be fair "breathe the air, drink the drink" has a rather more optimistic feeling. But it's the endings you remember isn't it? The beginning draws you in, and the end leaves you with emotion and possibly questions.

We are having a fridge-raid quiche for dinner - a Sunday quiche rather than a Friday one. Mostly salmon leeeks and fennel I think with the leftover sour-cream sauce from my neighbourhood party corn rolls. Neither summer nor winter.

Apologies for a real ramble about nothing. My mind is elsewhere.

POSTSCRPT

Stir fry - yes hummus disappears into the mix of a very inauthentic stir fry. I'm sure every Asian would turn in their graves. But it all disappeared, and so did the rest of the chicken, and a large chunk of hummus. And I got some chicken stock out of it too. For soup - next time we go back to winter.

YEARS GONE BY

August 16

2025 - Nothing

2024 - Jo has two websites - why?

2023 - A goddess steak

2022 - Nothing

2021 - Missing

2020 - Missing

2019 - Oh dear!

2018 - A word from ... Richard Olney

2017 - A word from Greg Malouf

2016 - A birthday dinner at Sofia's