To make the most of the strawberries I bought before they spoiled, I dried them in our air fryer for 2.5 hours (to my husband’s surprise, because electricity does not come cheap) and was satisfied with the result. I just wanted to try the “dried fruits” feature in our air fryer and the outcome did not disappoint!
The dried strawberry slices tasted like chewy sour patches. I wondered if they would taste any better if I had candied them (even when I don’t know how).
The next day, I walked to a nearby bakery that sells some yogurt. I deliberately chose the strawberry kind so I could put the dried strawberries in it when I got home.
And so for two breakfasts, I enjoyed strawberry on strawberry, which felt like a nostalgic dream—something I wished to do when I grew up, and I did.
There’s really an allure to growing up and getting old because it is a time when you can access resources you’ve never had before. And I’m afraid that sometimes, I become so desensitized to the banality of the access I now enjoy that I fail to appreciate simple moments like gobbling up dried strawberry slices (which I dried for 2.5 hours in an air fryer) in my strawberry yogurt after breakfast.
In my childhood home, strawberries were hard to get by.
So when I arrived at the metro eight years ago, where strawberries are sold on streets which is not a common sight back home, I immediately bought a small pack and brought it back to my dorm room, reminding me that access to opportunities is often location-specific too.
It reminded me of a friend who told me that in his hometown, the frozen section at their grocery store is just two-fridge wide. So when I brought him to the supermarket, he was in awe like a wide-eyed child walking through aisle after aisle of frozen goods.
His awe and joy and excitement was contagious, which encouraged me to bring him from one aisle to another just so I could savor the same wonder that was exuding from him.
Because on an ordinary afternoon, I would have passed through the same aisle of giant refrigerators filled with various frozen goods without feeling a sense of wonder.
How many simple pleasures have we taken for granted these days just because they were a given? How many strawberry-on-strawberry and aisles-of-frozen-goods moments have we missed to appreciate just because they are mundane and expected?
jessa 