After an abrupt closure at the height of the Christmas rush due to covid exposure, yay for negative tests and today Andy’s Orchard announced they were open again, stocked with your favorites and a discount for coming in.

I’d been waiting all year for the stuffed figs (not on his website yet) to make their seasonal comeback. And to replenish my dried apricots, the Blenheim slabs, (also here in a gift box) ie the ones that were dried at the point of greatest ripeness such that they smeared when cut open. So good. Adding ten minutes to my daily exercise and snacking on those these past two winters satisfied both the sweet tooth and the need to drop the pandemic pounds–and I did. Lost the prediabetes, too. Apricots for the win.

There was one other thing. I’d seen them there before but it wasn’t till I read about them in the New York Times that I saw why I should try those weird-looking shrunken-monkey-brain things, and Andy’s is the only place I’ve ever seen that has them.

Lily Chin (famous longtime designer in the knitting world) expressed her extreme delight at discovering some in New York City. Alright then, I had to at least try them, given that we live where they actually grow and I could support the farmer directly. This was the first year I hadn’t yet had so much as a ripe persimmon and that season’s about over, and it was easy to entice me with the idea of a variant that would keep, as well as buying some fresh ones by going down there.

(My neighbors who always traded me persimmons for pomegranates moved away this fall and their tree sits there unpicked and untouched.)

So. I could not for the life of me think of the word. The clerk was checking me out when I remembered with, Oh! Do you have… uh… The Hachiyas, y’know, dried and shriveled Japanese style and, um, hanging on a string (pantomiming holding the string delicately with thumb and forefinger while flicking at it from below with the other hand as if to make it swing back and forth in the air or as if I’m the rude kid in elementary school sitting behind you trying to grab your attention when the teacher’s not looking. What was the name of the boy behind me who liked to do that.)

I got some!

Slice them and serve them with cheese like salami, the Times says.

Fruit. Salami??

I haven’t tasted them yet; there’s this whole wait-till-Christmas mentality. It’s two days too late to use my birthday as an excuse to dive in early.

If I adore them like crazy, given the price tag (well deserved; they have to be massaged daily while drying. I am officially jealous of a persimmon), I will just remind myself, I have my apricots. I have my Andy’s extra ripe slab dried Blenheim apricots.

And that is no small thing.