Memo from me to anyone hanging out in my kitchen: If you happen to notice the spiderweb on the windowsill over the sink, please note, it’s not sloth. It’s science. Sort of.

Every year at the beginning of spider season, my husband adopts one or two of the fledgling orb-weavers and monitors their progress, sometimes for weeks at a time. He marvels at their elegant web architecture and ponders their various modes of spider behavior. This has become possible since our pet scrub jay, Dude, who for eight years ferociously indulged a weakness for succulent garden spiders, passed on to his reward.

I have to admit, because it’s an interesting process when viewed from afar — even for the one of us who’s fairly phobic when it comes to spiders — I’m OK with Steve’s hobby. Sort of. And I must say, this year’s earliest candidate is actually earning her keep up there on the window ledge over the sink. Right now she’s living in the mouth of a stemless wineglass, over an irresistible little pool of vino. Flies go in, but they don’t come out. They either land in the wine and simply die a happy death or they are so intoxicated after imbibing that their wobbly flight sends them straight into our resident spider’s sticky snare.

You see, we were having a bit of trouble with fruit flies.

This was weeks ago and I couldn’t figure out why we were dealing with them so early in the year. They’re more of a summer phenomenon, as any of you who enjoy the local harvest knows. Whereas, these guys had appeared before strawberry season was even under way.

Could they have emerged from something in the house? A thorough search of the pantry produced not a single likely source for our infestation, so I extended the hunt to the next most likely region: my office. There, in a neglected corner of the room, stood a suspicious-looking plastic bag. Upon prodding the outer surface, a cloud of the offending flies fluttered up through its opening.

Ugh. It was the long-lost collection of tulip bulbs that should have been mailed to my brother last February, now rotten, slimy and hosting a gang of giddy fruit flies.

Which is where Goldie comes in. Oh, didn’t I tell you? Steve likes to name his pet spiders. This one’s called Goldie. (“Because she’s gold, of course!”) And as tiny as she is — no bigger than the little insects she ensnares in her woven, silky threads of doom — she’s put a significant dent in that pesky fruit fly population.

Of course, the day will come when she outgrows her indoor welcome and I will have to gently capture and relocate her to a tomato plant or a rose where she can gobble bugs and live out her spider days in contented bliss.

Meanwhile, with the fruits of summer arriving, I am entering into the season with confidence. Indeed, when the next round of little flies attempts a kitchen coup, I’ve got the secret weapon, and her name is Goldie.

From one of my fellow food writers and cookbook authors, Maryanna Vollstedt, here’s a trio of recipes to really drive those pesky fruit flies crazy. They’re from one of her popular cookbooks, “The Big Book of Potluck.”

Bon appetit!