Monday, May 14, 2012

The Perfect Summer Salad

This morning I picked up the lone mango in our fruit bowl and cupped it in my hands, it was soft, smushy, ripe and ready to be eaten.  Mango is the ultimate summer fruit.  I decided that I would use it for lunch.  As 12 PM rolled around, I jumped up from my big comfy couch in my den to make lunch.  I decided to make a chicken mango salad, first I peeled the mango with a thin knife (a skill that I picked up at my summer job at Whirled Peace) and sliced up some small pieces, then I filled a medium size bowl with some romaine lettuce, arugula, cut-up bright orange baby carrots, white onions and multi-colored cabbage.  Then I chopped up a piece of char-grilled chicken, left-over from our Mother's Day BBQ and put the chicken and mango into the bowl of lettuce.  For more flavor, I peeled a cheese-stick and ripped the long strands into little pieces.  To finish off the colorful bowl, I scooped a couple spoonfuls of dark red tomato salsa on top of the salad.  My first bite was a combination of romaine, a couple strands of arugula, a bite-size piece of a carrot, a sliver of white onion, cabbage, mango, cheese, chicken and salsa.  The ingredients mixed together perfectly, the sweetness of the mango, the saltiness of the cheese and salsa, the crunch of the chicken and carrots and the sting of the white onion.  I tried to pace myself and eat slowly, but before I knew it, the bowl was empty.  It was a bittersweet feeling that tempted my taste-buds.  Bitter from the fact that I had finished it so quickly, but sweet from the fact that it was a delicious creation.

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