Verokoka

They went in looking like this

And came out looking like this

This machine has been whirring on the bench for a full day, filling the air with the smell of warmed apricots, and has managed to reduce 3kg of apricots to a mere handful of dried leather stuff.

F insists that dried apricots should be brown and tough and chewy (not orange and soft), and should have enough acidity to make your saliva jump.  She describes the dried apricots sold in supermarkets (and the like) as 'bright orange pieces of sweetened plastic'.  Not very flattering is it? - but you have to admit for eye appeal you'd go for the bright orange ones wouldn't you?

Last week she bought a kilogram of the cheapest apricots at the laiki and got them home to discover they were as hard as knobs of dried goat s**t (her words - never tested those myself and not convinced she has either), and tasted like vinegar.  By contrast the 'honey' apricots were so soft and so sweet you only needed to kiss them and they dissolved into your mouth.  

She had to eat a kilogram of honey apricots in 2 days.  Imagine what that does to your insides.  Talk about a 'detox'.  The hard ones lasted all week, and came right in the end - nice balance of sweet and acid, excellent flavour she said.  She even made cakes with these apricots in them, and savoured every slice.

So this week she went back and filled bags with the hard sour apricots, not picking through them, just shovelling them in, big ones, small ones, orange ones, slightly green ones....  The man on the stall weighed them, added a few more and then said 'no money' - in English.  (F paid him some money anyway - you can't go giving away your livelihood - and she paid him because in her view they were the best apricots in the market.)

So it looks like this machine is going to be whirring away all week, and I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't go back for more next week.  The season is so short that having found what she likes, I know her, she is going to stock up.