Once upon a time, Ben got a nice little package of goodies from his grandmother, a dear woman named Jude (Hi Jude!). It contained various items ranging from wasabi rice cracker mix to dried fruits and trail mix. As I was sampling the fruits, I noticed some abnormally large red ones that looked delicious. As it turned out, they were. I hypothesized that they were dried strawberries, and being the gentleman that I am, promptly ate most of them.

When that source was depleted, I made it my mission to find a new one. Since I work at a grocery store, I figured I’d find them in the natural aisle with all the other dried fruits. Alas, there were none. We had all sorts of other dried fruits, even apple rings, but no dried strawberries. Deeply disappointed, I headed home. A few weeks later, I walked in the store to see a wall of dried fruits that miraculously included strawberries. At $3.19 a pack they were a bit pricey, but I grabbed ‘em anyway.

As soon as you open the pack, an intense aroma of strawberry slinks its way up your nose, daring you not to eat one. Ava’s Dried Strawberries are not the most natural dried strawberries you’ll find, but I’m okay with that. They sort of candy them up, a bit. They’re very sweet and they have sort of a gummy texture, as in gummy bears, not gum, but more like gum drops than gummy bears. They have a vivacious strawberry taste that explodes in your mouth upon chewing. The seeds on the outside are tiny and dried, which adds a subtle crunchy texture to the whole affair, as does the strawberries’ lightly sugared exterior.

I recently tried another brand of dried strawberry that our store started carrying, a much more natural type. It was also really good, but the taste wasn’t as strong, it wasn’t as gummy, and it was more expensive, but it didn’t have the high fructose corn syrup that Ava’s does. There’s no fat in them, but there are 140 calories per each of the 4 servings in the pack. Either way, Ava’s Dried Strawberries are probably the best dried fruit I’ve ever had, but then again they’re basically half candy. Health food fanatics might not like them, but anyone looking for a delicious fruit snack would be wise to taste these at least once.