Last week I was at my parents’ house, and they offered me some fresh dates they had just bought down the road. I had seen the hand-written signs posted at the intersection of Arcadia Drive and Lafayette pointing to the Mountgrove or “date palm” neighborhood (at 47th st. and Lafayette), but I thought since they’re sold out of someone’s home, they’d be in a brown paper bag sitting out on a table. I definitely didn’t expect the professional packaging or the sweet deliciousness of these dates, which are kept in a freezer case and come in two different varieties.

I can’t remember even eating a date I’ve liked before, unless you count drinking them in date shakes from the “shake shack” in Newport Beach when I was pregnant. That was when my OB told me I had gained 8 pounds in one week… and it was “not 8 pounds of baby.”

Anyway, if you live in Phoenix and will be driving anywhere near Camelback road and 44th street, I’d say it’s worth a few minutes of your time, and the $7 per pound to get a one pound box or two of these black sphinx dates. Apparently they are a very rare type of date (read much more about these dates and the history of date groves in Arizona here) and even though I always hated it when my mom told me to eat certain foods because they “tasted just like candy”, these truly do taste like a dense, sugary sweet candy. You keep them in the freezer and apparently they last a very long time. I’m finding lots of reasons to stop by my parents’ house to grab a few out of their freezer. Now I just need to buy my own box!