Heavenly Ojai Pixies

When I was in Ojai a week ago, the markets were flooded with a citrus fruit I'd never heard of: Ojai Pixies. I am not the biggest fan of anything orange, so I didn't pay the Pixie much mind.

Then I got home and read in the Los Angeles Times an article praising the Pixie's excellent worth. A mysterious cross between a mandarin and an orange, Pixies are small, fantastically sweet, and ridiculously easy to peel. They have, apparently, an almost-cult following.. Kids have been known to pass up plates of home-made cookies over the intoxicating taste and seedless allure of Pixies.

And it's High Pixie Season, right now.

Oh, great. I was just there; the farmers' market was piled high with Pixies, and I had no idea what I was passing up.

(Hand model: my pug-sitter, M. Thank you, M, for wearing orange nail polish this week!)

But sometimes Fortune grants a second act. On a hunch, I went to my local, best grocery store today, and they had them! A pile of Pixies. A mountain of Pixies. A...well, there were a lot. I grabbed what I thought was a generous amount (eight) and brought them home.

I ate one for dessert tonight. Followed, almost immediately, by another. (There may have been moaning involved; I'm not telling.)

I'll just say that, except for the lovely things you can do with limes (Gin and Tonics!) and lemons (Lemon Meringue Pie! Lemon Curd!), I'm still not a huge citrus lover. But Pixies? They are another story. They are a chapter unto themselves. They are the closest thing to candy in a citrus form that I have ever eaten.

And tomorrow, I'm going back to the grocery store for a whooooole lot more of them.