The plums in the back yard are falling fast.

        It’s that time of year, and we’re not doing a good job of keeping up with them.

        The swings that the kids use every day are on the other side of the tree so more plums get squished than eaten some days.

        They’re kind of nasty to pick up when they’ve been ground into the grass because they’re not only slimy but covered with ants. It’s backbreaking work to pick them up, but I’ve got a system; I sit on one of the kid’s stools with two buckets – one for the good ones that we'll keep, the other for the slimy ones that'll go in the compost.

        When I’ve picked up all that I can reach, I move the stool and start again.

        That keeps it from being backbreaking work.

        To break the monotony of it, I stop and eat a plum every few minutes.

        “Could you use some plums”, is our favorite opener when we meet with friends, but that doesn’t begin to deplete the supply we have. Everyone seems to feel we’ll view them as greedy if they take more than a handful.

        This year there were three families that said they really liked plums and would be sure to come and pick their own, but, sad to say, they haven’t shown up yet.

        To make matters worse last year, the neighbor across the street – in an effort to be friendly – brought over a pail of them. She, too, had an excess, and had no idea that we had a plum tree in the back yard.

        My favorite the last few years has been Plum Cake Cockaigne.

        I got it originally from “Joy of Cooking”, the wonderful classic by Irma Rombauer and Marion Becker.

        Here’s how you do it:

        Heat the oven to 425 and then start to make the dough by sifting together 1 cup of all-purpose flour, 1 tsp of double-acting baking powder, ¼ tsp salt, 2 tbsp sugar.

        Add 1 ½ to 3 tbsp of butter (depending on your diet) and work the ingredients like pastry.

        Before working these things into the pastry, measure into half a cup: 1 egg, ½ tsp of vanilla, and enough milk to fill that half cup. (If the fruit is extra juicy reduce the amount of milk by one tbsp.)

        Pat the dough with a floured palm until it covers a greased pan (of about 6x6) and then cover the dough with overlapping rows of half sections of plums (unpealed).

        Bake about 25 minutes and then cover with a mixture of 1 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon and 3 tbsp melted butter.

        I like to add whipped cream when its served.

        Vanilla ice cream would be good with it, too.

        This one is an adaptation from “The Jewish Holiday Baker” by Joan Nathan.

        The secret of this recipe is to use a food processor so that you can pulse a cup of all-purpose flour with a pinch of salt and 2 tbsp of sugar until the mixture looks like bread crumbs.  Then you cut into small pieces half a stick of unsalted butter and add it together with an egg yolk until you’ve worked the mixture (with a fork or wooden spoon) into a ball of dough.

        Pre-heat the oven to 400 while you spread the dough about halfway up the edges of a 9” pie plate.  Prick the crust with the tines of a fork in several places and bake it for 10 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.

        Then reduce the oven to 350, spread a third of a cup of apricot preserves on the crust and  sprinkle a tbsp of bread crumbs evenly over the preserves.

        Mix 2 more tbsp of sugar with an eighth of a tsp of cardamom and half a tsp of cinnamon and sprinkle half of the mixture over the bread crumbs.

        Cut the plums in half and then into quarters and overlap them, as you start a series of circles on the crust.  When that’s done, sprinkle the remainder of the sugar/cardamom/cinnamon mixture over the top.

        Bake until the plums are juicy.  That usually takes 30 to 40 minutes.

        When you take it out of the oven, sprinkle powdered sugar on it.

        Then….enjoy it.