The brief season of apricot harvest is upon us, and many fruit enthusiasts will soon bite into one of these small, delicate, yellowish-orange fruits.  I grew up in a San Jose subdivision that was built on an apricot orchard. Each house had 2-3 apricot trees left on the lot, and so I have great memories of enjoying them fresh from the tree, still warm- from-the-sun and tartly-sweet.  But, I have to admit that my favorite form of apricot then and now, are home-dried apricots.  They sure were a great treat to find nestled in my trusty red-plaid metal lunchbox in the middle of winter.

Apricots have been grown in the fertile crescent of Persia for thousands of years.  The colonists brought the apricot to North...