I have a plum tree that drops a huge number of very small plums — they are the size of a large cherry. During the height of the harvest they are literally falling on my head while I am bent over picking them up from the ground. One sees this plum planted alongside country roads in Romania. One sees them in Bulgarian, and in Italy. It is my theory that this little yellow plum was brought to my town, Santa Cruz, California, by Italian immigrants who came at the turn of the twentieth-century. The plum is wonderful to eat — every year I make a plum tart — and have a little party for the first plums of the season.

As I am writing this, it is the first week of March and the tree has nearly finished flowering. It was from the plethora of these little plums in my backyard that I began making fruit wine– and an eau de vie distilled from the wine. When I travel, I look for home practitioners — in Africa, in Asia, and in Europe.