Raisins

 Preamble

This is interesting: I thought this blog had evaporated into the ether of the land of the lost internet (which is where I'm pretty sure my hotmail account went). I got an email saying there hasn't been activity on it in so long that it would be deleted soon. Turns out that was the motivation I needed in order to start writing again. 

It's not that I haven't been writing at all; I am a fairly prolific letter writer in general; but since my uncle died last summer I have not even been doing that much, since he was my main correspondent. I started writing to one of my former teachers in California who I am still in touch with but she doesn't respond regularly, so it was pretty one sided and that doesn't inspire me to keep it up.

But I feel welcomed back by Blogger now to continue my random thoughts and create more first person essays (are these essays? not really, but that's okay!) so here I go!

Raisins

Lately I've been thinking a lot about raisins. Regular pedestrian brown raisins not their golden cousins.

I don't remember eating raisins much as a kid. I have a vague memory of putting them on peanut butter filled celery sticks for snack and I definitely had raisin toast often because I know my dad enjoyed it, so we usually had it in the house. It was most excellent with butter melting on top. I'm sure we must have had raisin bran cereal occasionally too, but my memory for such things is fading more and more. Though I can remember the ad jingle for Kellogg's Raisin Bran surprisingly well! (I watched too much TV!)

I saw in the grocery store that they now have double raisin English muffins -- I didn't know these existed! For those people whose favorite part of the bread is the raisin part.

Recently I read that a quarter cup of raisins every day could really help aging people to retain their short term memory and that was all I needed to know to start doing it! I don't even need to buy raisins because we have so many from when we used to go to the free food pantry. For some reason (probably because they are pretty good for you!) they would always give out lots of raisins. Also other dried fruits like cherries and prunes. Things that aren't ever on my personal grocery lists. Things I really would not buy and would not have unless they were free. I have used some of them in homemade oatmeal raisin cookies but that's about it. I know I could add them to porridge (oatmeal) but I just don't. . . and I don't make bread.

I tried to make bread during the pandemic quarantine time and also again more recently but it turned out so badly that I deemed it not worth future effort. I will stick with homemade pizza dough crust, which I became pretty good at making (!!) through repetition and recipe experimentation. I don't think raisins would make sense in pizza dough though.

I'm more of a cook than a baker but maybe with my newfound interest in the rabbit poop reminiscent dried fruit I could try to make some bran muffins with raisins. I really think I would eat those if they turned out well.

So, whether they come in a box or a bag, in cereal or bread, porridge or cake or cookies, here's three cheers for nature's candy, hip hip hooray for the humble raisin!