Raisins

Last weekend when we were expecting Hurricane and Tornado to come over, we needed to stockpile a few things, so we headed to the store. I always kid about how much candy that I give to the kids, but that’s mainly to piss their mom off. I’m not sure if it works, but it is fun and I plan to keep doing it.

The boys actually need to eat real food when they are here, so we give some thought to getting foods that they will eat. We are seldom universally successful. One thing that is always a hit is grapes. The boys will stuff them in their mouths like starving squirrels a week before the first big snow of winter. I am amazed at how many will actually fit. I can see how they would fit, but not how they manage to chew and swallow them. Anyways, during the reverse lunch, we had grilled cheese sandwiches (not a big hit that day), carrots and grapes. Carrots were the big seller, which kind of surprised me.

The grapes were tasted and then just sat in the bowls until toys and video games lured the kids away. I thought it odd, but kids are odd creatures at the best of times. Later in the day, after the boys had left and I had my nap, I grabbed a handful of grapes and tossed them in my mouth. You know that feeling when you bite into an apple and see half a worm? Same kind of thing. I wasn’t sure just what was in my mouth, but it sure wasn’t the kind of grapes that I have come to know and love.

They tasted like grapes, but the consistency was way off. Going back to the apple example, you know when an apple is past its best before date and is kind of soft and springy at the same time? Well, that was sort of the taste of these grapes. Soft, springy and tasteless.

I told Louise that I wouldn’t eat any more and she said that she wouldn’t eat them either. I could throw them in the garbage or in the compost pile. There was one other alternative, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade; when life gives you crappy grapes, make raisins. What a brilliant idea! Now, where did I put my dehydrator?

I arranged the grapes on the racks and plugged the machine in. I don’t know anything about making raisins, but I assume you just let grapes dry. Sure, I would imagine there are special “raisin” grapes that are grown on south facing slopes somewhere in the southern area of France, but to my way of thinking grapes are grapes. I googled how many grapes it takes to make raisins, and the answer that I got was one grape = one raisin. No shit!

It seems that, 50 raisins weigh about an ounce. There are 32000 ounces in a ton, and so that would mean that there are around 1.5 million to 1.75 million grapes that go into making a ton of raisins. What the hell! I’ve got two or three bunches. Whatever the answer is, if you were planning on buying grapes at the store and making your fortune by drying them and selling raisins, you can forget it. I have been drying the grapes for more than 24 hours, and although they are starting to look like big juicy raisins, they have a way to go. When done, I doubt whether they will fill one of those Halloween snack boxes that you get raisins in.

Let’s see, we bought the grapes for three or four bucks, plucked them off of the stems, washed them, it will probably cost a couple of dollars in electricity to dry them and of course there is my wait time. I have the feeling that in the end I am going to have a handful of very expensive, soft, springy, tasteless raisins to toss in the compost bin.