This Obsession Proves Fruitful

Fifteen years ago, while visiting his daughter in Florida, Stanley Parchaiski was in a Kmart and saw a big sign advertising fig trees for $6.66. Because the price was so good and his grandfather had fig trees, he decided to bring one home to Waterford.

Of course, he would have to convince his wife. Carolyn Parchaiski would be the one sitting next to the tree (he owned a pick-up truck with no extended cab) for the 24-hour ride.

“I became good friends with the fig tree,” she says. “Maybe that’s why it grew.”

It did, and as it grew, so did Stanley’s interest in the fruit. Over the past 15 years, he’s been “obsessed” with fig trees, now having more than 13 different types of trees in his backyard.

Why the interest? If only he knew.

“It seems like every time I see a new variety I want to buy it,” says Stanley, 70, a former plumber at Pfizer. “[My wife] says, ‘What do you want another one for?’ and I say ‘I don’t know.’”

The Work

The Parchaiskis already have a huge garden that grows “bigger and bigger every year,” Stanley says. The fig trees require special care because they cannot handle the cold weather, he says.

The majority of Parchaiski’s fig trees are in pots, and he just brings them inside the basement for the winter. But the trees that are planted outside he cuts down to about 6 feet (they grow to about 15 feet at the end of the season), ties them up, wraps them with home insulation and then covers them with a plastic tarp.

“It looks like Millstone,” Carolyn Parchaiski says. “Three smoke stacks.”

Carolyn also has developed every possible recipe for figs, from fig jam to fig pie to fig and pork chops. Her favorite is when she stuffs the figs with a mixture of gorgonzola cheese, walnuts and parsley, and then puts them under the broiler until the cheese melts.

“Oh my God,” Stanley Parchaiski says. “It's like a meal.”

A Happy Retirement

The Parchaiskis are retired and like to travel. Of course, figs are never off the mind. In one of their vacations, they went to the Isle of Capri; Stanley liked a fig tree there and flew home with it.

They also have a boat, and Stanley enjoys his new Corvette (“It took 45 years of begging,” he jokes).

“Here we are; it seems like we are busy all day,” Stanley says . “And I’m saying to myself, when I was working how the heck did I do all this?”

In many ways though, as they age, they become more like the people they never thought they’d become, Stanley says. It’s just the way it is, he says.

“When I was little and my grandfather had a couple of fig trees, I didn’t pay attention; I didn’t even care for the figs, because you didn’t care about those things back then,” he says. “Now, all the things our grandparents did, I feel like I want to do.”