Summer Fruit Salad

Unless you live in the tropics, summer is the time for locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables here in the northern U.S. Here's a good fruit salad you can try. You can certainly add other fruit or subtract some of the fruit types. 

Ingredients (multiple servings):

1 cup bite size seedless watermelon chunks 

1 cup bite size cantaloupe chunks

1 cup seedless grapes (I used sweet sapphire grapes when I made the salad for this article)*

1/2 to 2/3 cup strawberries, sliced

1/2 cup blueberries

1/2 cup red pear, cored and chopped, skin on

1/4 cup fresh mint, chopped or torn into smaller pieces

1/4 cup fresh lemon or lime juice

2 to 3 tablespoons clover honey (or more, to taste)

Put all the fruit pieces into a non reactive bowl (preferably one with a lid, or cover it with plastic wrap). In a cup (I use a glass measuring cup), add the lemon or lime juice, the mint and the honey and mix well. Pour the dressing mixture over the salad and mix well to coat the fruit pieces. Remember, not only does the citrus juice flavor the salad, it helps to keep the fruit fresh longer. While not a criminal offense if you serve the salad right away, but it is best to cover it and to chill it for an hour or two first.

* Sweet sapphire grapes are dark purple seedless grapes that are oblong in shape. They are typically an inch or so in length.
 

WORD HISTORY:  

Kern/Kernel-English has more than one word "kern," neither of which is in common use. This form of "kern" here is simply a variant of "corn;" thus, it goes back to the Indo European root "ger," which had the notion, "wear down;" thus also, "to mature," which produced "gerhanom," which meant "grain;" that is, "a larger grown object 'worn down by maturity.' " This gave Old Germanic "kurnan," meaning "a small seed from a plant;" thus, "a grain or seed." (NOTE: "Some" believe there was a separate Old Germanic form "kernon," which they believe was closely related to, or perhaps even derived from, the Old Germanic ancestor of "corn.") Old Germanic also had a diminutive form, "kurnila/kurnilo" (??), and this gave Old English "cyrnel" ("a seed, a swelling or growth on or in the body"). This then became "kirnel" and "kernel." The other Germanic languages have: German has "Kern" ("seed, core, middle/center, nucleus;" for instance, the compound "Stadtkern"=core of the city, the city center), German once also had "kornel," "a small seed or grain of something;" Low German has "Karn" ("core, middle/center, stone from fruit), West Frisian "kearn" (core, middle/center), it "seems" Frisian once had "kernel," Dutch "kern" (core, nucleus, stone from fruit), Dutch also once had "cornel" ("coarse meal"), Swedish has "kärna" ("core, kernel"), Icelandic "kjarni" ("core, nucleus, kernel"), Danish "kerne" ("core, middle/center, seed"), Norwegian "kjerne" ("core, nucleus").