Food for thought: Fruit salad

Fruit salad, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...Summer salad with a rainbow of fruit flavors...Winter fruit salad with citrus, apples, pears, walnuts and concentrated orange juice sauce or as an appetizer with fruit vinegar.....Avocado, citrus and bananas with lime syrup....Papayas, mangoes and pineapple with mint and lime....Grapes and berries with liqueur or champagne. You get the picture. Oh, I almost forgot dates, oranges, coconut and slivered almonds with sweet yogurt.

My husband has domain over fruit salad chez nous. He wooed me with fruit salad and it made Sundays in Bamako grand affairs as I would (eventually) wake to the sight of pounds and pounds of fruit on the table. He also has the patience to peel, core and cut, while I prefer to flip, fry and flambe.

When I get in the kitchen to make a fruit salad, it is to make a quick, bold celebration of fruit. Great frozen fruit has helped me immensely. Last Saturday, I made a simple fruit salad that many appreciated. Here's how it went:

2 16-oz. packages frozen peaches, & 1 12- or 16-oz. package frozen mangoes, thawed 10 minutes (so get these out while you're doing the rest). I get the mangoes at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, although Giant & Shopper's have them (for more $$$).

1 pint fresh blueberries, rinsed, preferably washed with veggie soap
2 or 3 pints fresh strawberries, rinsed/washed & quartered

Sauce:
1/3 cup frozen juice from concentrate (I used pine-orange-banana), thawed
1/3 cup pina colada mix, thawed from frozen or canned (or just double the juice concentrate)
1/2 tsp. Lemon extract
1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract

If you don't have any extract, use a fruit liqueur like Peach Schnapps.

I put in an extra step of soaking the quartered strawberries in 2 Tbsp.balsamic vinegar and 3 heaping Tbsp. organic sugar, then adding berries and juice at the end. Optional, by all means. But also delicious!


Combine partially thawed & the rinsed fruit in a large bowl. You may want to leave out the blueberries or any delicate berry until after everything's been mixed.

In a separate container, combine sauce ingredients & mix until blended. Pour over fruit. Add delicate fruit, if previously omitted. Let stand one hour for flavors to meld & fruit to thaw. If it's really hot, serve fruit partially frozen. Enjoy this delicious easy & fast salad!

Scratch and sniff beneath the surface: Make a gentle, refreshing face & body mist from grocery store ingredients!

Don't you ever wonder how something, the same thing, can cost $1 somewhere and $11 somewhere else? Immediately Evian water in an aerosol Well, I'm not too scared to experiment and figure out how to have fun and stretch a dollar in the process.

So, I wanted to do some detective work to find products that are sold as food products but that could double as beauty products. I favor pure stuff, like "real" vs. "imitation" vanilla extract. It will cost more but not much. Besides, do you want imitation cake--or real cake?

I recommend an Asian grocery store like Hahn Ah Reum, a small store like"India Spice Market" or a "We are in a diverse neighborhood" Giant, like the one across from PG Plaza. I shopped at the "diverse" Giant.

Here are my favorite double duty products:

Note:

If you spend a lot of time in the sun, don't use (or use very little) lemon extract. It makes the skin more sensitive in the sun. Some extracts, especially vanilla extract, usually has corn syrup, so don't add too much, or the bugs may be on you!

Vanilla extract- $3.50 for 1 oz.

Almond Extract- a little expensive, but it has a wonderful cherryish aroma (and you don't need a lot), $4.80 for 1 oz.

Orange blossom water $3 for 11 oz.

Rosewater, $2 for 7 oz.

Lemon Extract, $3 for 1 oz. This is actually 80% alcohol and oil of lemon.

Surabhi cocunut oil, from India. It's sold ina blue plastic bottle and smells like toasted coconut. Divine! Use it with a vanilla/musk fragrance, as a hot oil treatment, or as a beach bum oil.


Refreshing face and body mist:

This is a fragrance I imagine is from a souk (a market stall) somewhere in Arabia.


Use a spray bottle for maximum freshness. It is super-light and would be great as a face mist (try it to set your make-up!), as an outside wedding/graduation long drive freshener, etc. If you want a strong face toner/astringent, add more lemon extract. Or try to find peppermint extract & add a few drops. If you use any product with Retinol or are in the sun, add more almond and/or vanilla extracts ad take out lemon extract.

To decide how much to make, first look at your containers. Then divvy up the quantity by 12. So, if you were measuring with teaspoons, vanilla would have one teaspoon and rose water would have 3 teaspoons, for a total of 12 teaspoons.

1/12 vanilla extract
1/12 almond extract
1/12 lemon extract
3/12 rose water
6/12 orange blossom water

Combine all of these in a spray mist container, preferably dark glass.

Ahhh, enjoy!

Previous comment from "Summa summa summertime"
About extracts...

They usually contain 35% alcohol or have a glycerin base. They are water soluble, meaning fats/oils will not dissolve in them. So, when you add oil, you are going to have a concoction that looks like Italian salad dressing with oil on top & extract on the bottom. Try a thick lotion as a base. I'm just guessing & haven't tried it yet. This should work for both glycerin-based and alcohol-based extracts. Try mixing in a separate container, since you don't want to ruin a whole bottle of lotion.

Can you apply extracts directly on the skin? If you have some extract at home, try it. Otherwise, if you have vodka at home, try that on your skin. It should be fine for pulse points, but, over time, it runs the risk of drying out the skin. Vodka is about the same percentage of alcohol as extracts.

At Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and other specialty food stores they sell vanilla and other extracts in a glycerin base. They are generally high quality. The only problem with putting them directly on the skin could be bees chasing you! These are great for the skin and would be divine as a body scrub. (Mix the extract with vegetable oil and sea salt.) Or do a lotion, as stated above.I don't have brand recommendations, but the best vanilla, scentwise, is bourbon vanilla. For a first go-round, buy the supermarket brand of the pure extracts. They must say "pure" on the box. For value, try Trader Joe's.