A Dried Up Day

About a million years ago, my mother gave me a dehydrator as a gift.  While I was thrilled with the present, I don’t think I ever used it, at least not beyond a dehydration test drive or two. Rebecca, on the other hand, was a dehydration enthusiast, and was drying things all the time. A year or so after she moved into her own apartment, she called to see if I still had the dehydrator.  Of course I did, I said.  But when I went to find it for her, our basement was in such chaos that it didn’t seem to be there at all. You will have an idea of the basement mess when I tell you that I also had not been able to find her sewing machine.  The dehydrator is about the same size. A former friend who had worked on my basement, had made free with many of my tools and equipment, and so I was sure that he had taken it. Nowadays, whenever Rebecca, my aunt, or I can’t find something, we immediately say that J must have made off with it.  Usually we find it later, but we are not ashamed of our rash assumptions, as they were not only rash, but reasonable.  

Anyway, I could not find the dehydrator.  She really wanted to dry some vegetables, so, I took one more desperate look for the big machine, and there it was. I happily called her, but in the meantime, while it was still lost, she had purchased a new one.  This was just as well, because mine had been a Ford Model A version, and she got herself the BMW variety, which more suited her needs.  So there mine sat, still collecting dust.  Rebecca frequently encouraged me to use it, tempting me with some of her dried concoctions.  Finally, a dried pineapple slice did the trick.  She also mentioned that dried bananas are particularly good – a thing apart from the ones you buy at the grocery store.  Here are the results of my first foray into the land of dehydrated fruits.  Yum!  The pineapples are super good, but the bananas are out of this world!  When I told Rebecca that a downside of all this was that I ate an entire dried pineapple in a day, she replied that that was okay.  She did it all the time.

Those little brown things on the right don't look like much, but they are the hyper-flavorful bananas!

A bargain box of mangos fits into a bowl! Along with a few pineapple bits!