The fruit drought

I bought a honeydew melon the other day and when I cut it up for lunches it looked lovely, pale green and firm. However, when I ate my serving at work the next day it was disappointing. The texture was wrong, a signal that melon season is over. Period.

Of course, we have seasons for a reason. There was a time when people only ate local fruit in season. So you enjoyed your two weeks of strawberries and then it was over, unless you had the skill and foresight to do some preserving. 

Now we can get all kinds of fruit all year long. Mangoes in March, nectarines in November:  I definitely partake. It's hard to eat only apples, pears and bananas for 8 months straight, though our lunches do skew towards these fruits in the winter months. So when it's cold and blustery and I have non-local fruits in the fridge that may have questionable texture, I make fruit salad. Because, really, who doesn't like fruit salad? It's a welcome change in the lunch box and it adds some variety to our fruit-eating repertoire. After almost 6 tedious weeks of making school lunches now, I'll take variety wherever I can get it. 

Simple Fruit Salad

1/2 cup grapes

1/2 cup diced apples

1/2 cup melon (watermelon, honey dew or cantaloupe)

1/4 cup of blueberries

1 tsp maple syrup or honey

1 tsp lime juice

Mix all together and chill.