Georgetown Fruit Salad
One of the realities of living in the islands is the unreliable supply chain that regularly afflicts the local supermarket. Everyone must learn to adapt and cook with what happens to be available. So when a good supply of fresh, ripe fruits appears on the shelf...its time to eat alot of fruit. By next week, the same shelves might have only brown bananas and a few sad, bruised apples just beginning to attract fruit flies.
But then, isn't this true to some extent even in the US? There are those few short weeks in the summer when the fresh Georgia peaches and nectarines are there and the Florida citrus starts to appear and the local melons are ripe... Yes, you can get strawberries in February, shipped in from Peru and gassed into ripeness, but the flavor is just not the same as the ones in June that were grown in your own county. Fruit out of season needs a little dressing up to really come alive.
So I put together this fruit salad for a brunch one sunny morning in the cockpit with a few other boaters. When I first described my idea to Kathleen, she almost ran screaming from the room. The thought of a sugar syrup dressing on fresh fruit made her think of sticky cling peaches in a can. But it's not like that at all! The light syrup is just there to brighten the flavors a bit, and help the herbs stick to the fruit. Chilled and served along side some sourdough hotcakes, or a quiche...it's really good.
You can make this with whatever fruit you want, I suppose, but we used:
1/2 honeydew melon, cut into bite size cubes
1 mango, peeled and cut into bite size cubes
2 oranges, yep...bite size.
1 grapefruit sectioned, peeled and sliced
Chill this fruit while making the syrup: Boil 3/4 C water and add 2/3 C sugar, mix until dissolved. Then add 1/4 C finely chopped fresh mint leaves, 1/2 tsp lemon zest, juice of 1/2 lemon, and 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Mix well and cool. When ready to serve, pour the syrup over the fruit, stir well to mix.