SECOND HAND FRUIT

A few days before Christmas, I bought a ready-made fruit basket to give as a gift. I carried it around in my van for days and never did deliver it. The persons to whom I planned to give it had given us a plate full of decorated cookies each year and we'd never reciprocated. This Christmas, we wanted to do something for them. We didn't receive a cookie plate from them this year, and that was perfectly fine. We're cutting back too and we understand, but I started to think if I give a fruit basket, those people might think they should give something in return, so I intentionally didn't deliver it.

After baking holiday cookies, I asked my spouse to take tins of them to some of our neighbors and decided to give the fruit basket to another neighbor. Spouse tried a number of times to deliver the basket but never found the neighbor home. That turned out to be a very good thing.

To my surprise and dismay, some of the fruit had started to, shall I say, lose it's appeal. I'm relieved the neighbor wasn't home when Spouse tried to deliver the gift. We removed the fruit from the basket and I made a salad from some of the least appealing pieces. The fruit tasted fine. Some of it was a little bruised in spots and no longer fit to give as a gift. That's what I get for not following through in the first place. The fruit was fresh when purchased. I simply didn't want the intended recipient to feel obligated to return the favor. Why do I worry so much about those kinds of things? Here's the recipe for my salad - Spouse loved it:

SECOND HAND FRUIT SALAD

4 yellow delicious apples (or apples of choice)

3 Bartlett pears - ripened

1/4 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts

1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese

1/4 cup sweet and sour dressing (or poppyseed dressing)

1/4 cup orange juice

1/2 teaspoon groud cinnamon

Chop apples and pears and place in large mixing bowl. Add orange juice and stir (to keep fruit from turning brown). Add other ingredients and mix thorougly.