24 cherries

While at the fruit/veggie grocery store the other day, I spied a small box of sweet bing cherries.

BING CHERRIES!

One of my favorite summer fruits from home.  This was the first time I had seen them in Brazil.  They were shiny dark purple and looked delicious.  I quickly grabbed a plastic bag and carefully started to place cherries into it before noticing the price: R6 per 100g.

[enter frantic mental math]

6 reais = about 3 dollars.  So.
$3 dollars per 100grams. 
1000gm = 1kg.

That's 30 dollars for 1 kg.  [oh dear.]
2.2lbs per 1 kg.
And they cost.....

$13 dollars a pound???  ($13.64 to be exact.)

Holy crap.

Pretty sure I've never paid anywhere close to that at home.  The box didn't say where they were from. Chile?  Michigan???

Split second decision:  Fine. I wouldn't get THAT many, it would just be this once and we would thoroughly enjoy them.  The only scales at this place are at the checkout so I counted out 24 cherries, 8 for each of us (how heavy can 24 cherries really be?) and went on with my shopping.

When I got up to the counter, the cherries were the first thing out of my basket to be weighed.  My Portuguese is pretty terrible but I knew the lady was asking me if I knew how much these cherries cost.  She even repeated it to me again (R6 for 100g).  I nodded approval so she weighed them and the price popped up: R15.67.  That's about $7 dollars and 70 cents.  For 24 cherries.  31 cents per cherry.

[Me trying not to look surprised as I inwardly cringe.]

But I just smiled, she weighed the rest of the my stuff, I paid, and Eli and I walked home.

I stemmed them, washed them, (pitted them for Eli) and we ate them.  Jason and I savored them, while Eli showed his approval by stuffing the pieces into his mouth as fast as he could.  They were sweet and delicious. A taste of home.

But probably not worth paying 31 cents per cherry.