Several pounds of fruit salad

Yes, I said several pounds of fruit salad. This is what it looks like:

In a nutshell – or, at least, in a very large plastic container that’s standing in for a very large nutshell – it’s two pounds of strawberries, a pound and a half of grapes, two pounds of kiwi fruit, three pounds of cherries, half a pound of peaches, a little over half a pound of pineapple, a smattering of oranges, all sliced. Given that the kiwis and oranges had to be peeled, the strawberries had to be capped, not all of the grapes looked ready for prime time, and bits of the pineapple had to be lopped off, I’ll allow for maybe the loss of one pound of material from the total. Which brings us to… nine pounds, maybe? Yes, let’s call it nine pounds.

Now, here’s what you do with nine pounds of fruit salad as the summer approaches.

Put it in smaller containers and put it in the freezer. Yes, the freezer. In the morning, take one down from the freezer and put it in the fridge, because you don’t really want it to thaw.

You want it to warm up slightly from a frozen-solid state, enough that all of the delicious juice from the cherries and peaches and kiwis and pineapples comes up to a slushy consistency. By the afternoon, you should have something that is chewable (not everyone has metal teeth), filling, refreshingly cool, and better for you than ice cream, and delicious.

Well, that’s how I do it, anyway.