Back in the day, we kids cooked dinner most evenings when we got home from high school, and my little brother thought it would be funny to put these cartoons on the refrigerator. They have been taped inside my kitchen scrapbook for 50 years or so!
This is the same little brother who, after sampling our mother's fruitcake ingredients, referred to the glacé cherries as "plastic cherries." To this day, that's what we call them, an accurate description for those who do not like them and a term of endearment for those who do.
Because it's always "fruitcake weather" somewhere, Gerry and I try to keep our pantry well - stocked with plenty of "cherries, candied" and "pineapple, candied." Such was our quest last January, because we had used up our entire supply in December, making the Christmas Cake. We had concluded our weekly shopping, except for "plastic cherries" which had not appeared in our perusal of the store. Gerry said he would wait patiently near the cash registers while I searched one more time.
First, I re- checked the holiday baking display, which had looked like this before Christmas . . .. . . but had sadly dwindled away to nearly nothing in the New Year, certainly no candied cherries. Were there truly none to be had? I continued looking in what seemed like the most likely places: the regular baking aisle, with pie - fillings and so forth; the produce section, which sometimes harbors dried fruits as well as fresh; the breakfast aisle with prunes and raisins; the canned fruit section. My last guess was the section of novelty snacks, near the nuts, featuring dried strawberries and mango slices. But no plastic cherries. Where else would they be hiding?
Ready to admit that I couldn't find them anywhere, I headed to the front of the store where Gerry was checking his phone, casually leaning against a cartful of sale items, that -- coincidence! -- just so happened to include all of the season's leftover cherries and pineapple, marked down to half - price! Instead of defeat, we succeeded in securing a year's supply and more. The thing about that plastic fruit -- it never goes bad!
A pantry well stocked
with plastic cherries and plastic pineapple
(and dozens of ladyfingers for the Sherry Trifle):
CHRISTMAS CAKE!
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