At long last, I finally feel like the cold weather is gone for good. I’ve been waiting for the tell tale sign of the explosion of green in out backyard. I came practically overnight and it was such a welcome sight! I’m assuming that you are experiencing the same thing if you are living on the East Coast.

I tend to eat seasonally and after the long winter, I have been craving fruit salad. The timing was spot on because the markets are bursting with fresh fruit. When I got home and started preparing the fruit I realized that I had all the colors of the rainbow. It immediately reminded me of something a stranger once told me that I’ve never forgotten.

I was on the airtrain with my hubby and our son (Catherine was not born yet) and we were headed to catch a flight. At the next stop, a man enters the airtrain. He was one of those people whose presence you felt. I tried not to stare at him but he seemed larger than life and I have to admit that I was a bit fascinated with him. He radiated pure happiness and so it seemed perfectly natural that he should start singing. It wasn’t weird at all, you had to have been there.

I could tell that he was an older gentleman, but he was incredibly spry and I said to him “You are so happy and fit, what’s your secret?” to which he replied, with a smile, “I am 87 years old and I eat a rainbow everyday.” He went on to tell me that daily he makes it a point to eat food that is every color in the rainbow (veggies too). It was one of those moments that stuck with me, and every time I think about the word rainbow I remember what he said.

I love fresh fruit salad on its own, but I wanted to add some zest to it, so I made a honey ginger-lime dressing. For the fruit salad: wash all the fruits thoroughly and cut into small pieces. For the dressing: Combine 1/4 cup of honey with a tablespoon of freshly grated ginger, some lime zest and 1/2 cup of fresh lime juice. Mix well and drizzle over the fruit salad. Just like salt does to chocolate, the lime elevates the fruit. Chill before serving.

I have only one tip for buying delicious fruit. Taste it! I open every container of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, grapes and cherries and I sample them in the supermarket to make sure they are not too green or too ripe. For fruits that you can’t sample like pineapple, my best tip for making sure that pineapple is ripe is to pull up on one of the leaves, if it comes off – it is ready.