I picked up my friend Karen and we headed down the freeway towards Andy’s Orchard. As we were talking, I said, well, my potassium’s always low–to the point they actually treated it for awhile, awhile ago–and one of the best sources of potassium in food is dried apricots. By far, compared to, say, bananas. (Side chatter about stocking up for the winter on this trip.) So it’s not just food, it’s medicine, right? Hey, when life gives you an excuse to do what you want to do anyway…
She laughed.
I was hoping for Comice pears, too, but they were out today.
So, she asked me, standing in front of the recently-dried varieties: regular, premium, slab. How do you know what’s what?
The slabs are the ones that were so perfectly ripe they went smush when they cut them open. Those regulars? Nice and round and pretty. The slabs? Sweet and melting in texture with no added sugar but the shape is ‘gone splat.’ They are perfect.
Turns out it was her son Andy’s birthday. I was his Sunday School teacher back when he was ten, and now he’s ‘the answer to life, the universe, and everything‘ (MIT link with happy mathematicians) per Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. (It appears the answer really IS 42!)
Got her back home. I opened my car door, went around to the back and of course I pulled out a pound from me. Go celebrate with Andy for me, willya? Tell him I said happy birthday. He was always one of my favorites.