When my parents were here to visit, they brought me their food dehydrator. They had read about my fruit roll-up misadventure and thought perhaps the dehydrator would help. I've had it for a week or so now and decided to try it out yesterday.

I got out the mangos and cut them into strips. That in itself is hard work! Anyway, I laid them all out on the trays and got ready to preheat the machine. It wouldn't work. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Then I realized it was unplugged. After plugging it in, I tried again. It still didn't work. I made sure the outlet worked by plugging in the toaster. Yep, it worked. I tried a few more times. Then I scoured the internet looking for a troubleshooting guide. Nothing... how frustrating. When Chip got home he immediately said, "I smell burnt resistor. What happened?"

He tore the thing apart and realized that the heater was working but the fan was not. After about 5 minutes of fiddling, it was working fine. So, I started my mangos. The manual said that mangos should "cook" for about 16-18 hours. When I got up this morning, it was only about 14 hours and they were more than done.

Most of them taste just fine although I tend to like them more like beef jerky consistency than potato chip consistency. I think I need to slice them a more uniform thickness next time. And get a morning start so I can monitor them during the day.