Fruit Salad Dessert — The Sweetness We Keep For One Another

The house feels different without Mamma's voice on the phone. Tuesday mornings used to be Mamma calling at 10 AM to ask what I was making. Now Tuesday mornings are quiet. I make coffee. I look at the phone. I do not call her. I cannot call her. I sit and I drink the coffee and Sven (the puppy) tries to climb into my lap and the silence is not unbearable but it is new. Elsa called from Voyageurs. She said the loons came back this week. She said Mamma always loved the loons. She said it had not been the same year without her. I said no. It had not been. We talked for ten minutes. Elsa does not call often. The calls she does make are small and dense, like a hard candy. I save them. I roll them around in my mind for days afterward. Astrid drove up from the Twin Cities for a long weekend. We sat in Mamma's kitchen at Fifth Street (Erik has not sold the house yet; we are not ready). We made meatballs together, in Mamma's kitchen, in Mamma's bowl, on Mamma's stove. We did not say much. We worked side by side the way we worked side by side as girls — at thirteen and ten, at nineteen and sixteen, now at sixty-something and sixty-something. The hands knew. The kitchen knew. The kitchen carried us through. Sophie had her baby. A girl. They named her Ingrid, after Mamma. I drove to Minneapolis. I held her — she was tiny, with the same dark hair Sophie had at birth, with eyes that tracked the room with serious attention. I said in Swedish: Välkommen, lilla Ingrid. Welcome, little Ingrid. I cried. Mamma would have approved. Mamma did approve, in the months before she went, when Sophie told her the plan. The name is the bridge. I cooked Wild blueberry pie this week. Berries picked from the Superior Hiking Trail in August, frozen for use throughout the year. Tossed with sugar and a little cornstarch. Baked in a butter-and-lard crust. Served warm with vanilla ice cream. The taste of the trail. Thursday: soup. Always soup. Gerald said, "You are the most reliable woman in Duluth." I said, "I am the most reliable woman in this kitchen." He said, "Same thing." I do not think that is the same thing. I think that is a kindness Gerald gives me because Gerald is kind. I take the kindness. I do not argue. I lit a candle in the kitchen for no particular reason. Maybe for Mamma. Maybe for Pappa. Maybe for Lars. Maybe for Paul. Maybe for all of them. The candle is a tall white tapered one, set in a brass holder Mamma had on her dining room table for forty years. I let it burn down. The dripping wax made a small white pool on the brass. I cleaned it off. I lit another one the next night. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. I have learned, slowly, that there is a kind of competence that comes only with age. Not wisdom, exactly — wisdom is a word too grand for what I mean. Competence. The competence of having watched many things go wrong and many things go right and having developed an internal database of which is which. The competence is, perhaps, the only thing that improves with age in a body that is otherwise declining. I will take the trade. It is enough.

The blueberry pie was already spoken for — those Superior Trail berries, frozen since August, destined for butter-and-lard crust and vanilla ice cream — but the week asked for something else alongside it, something cool and easy to set on the table when Astrid was still there and we did not want to cook anymore but we wanted to keep eating, keep sitting, keep being in Mamma’s kitchen together. This Fruit Salad Dessert is that kind of food: unfussy, a little sweet, the kind of thing you make when the house is full of people you love and the afternoon is long and nobody wants it to end. I have made it a hundred times. I will make it a hundred more.

Fruit Salad Dessert

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 15 min + 1 hr chilling | Servings: 10

Ingredients

• 1 can (20 oz) pineapple chunks, drained, juice reserved
• 1 can (15 oz) mandarin oranges, drained
• 1 can (15 oz) sliced peaches, drained and cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 cup green grapes, halved
• 1 cup fresh or thawed frozen blueberries
• 1 package (3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding mix, dry
• 1 container (8 oz) frozen whipped topping, thawed
• 1/2 cup reserved pineapple juice

Instructions

1. Combine the fruit. In a large mixing bowl, gently stir together the pineapple chunks, mandarin oranges, peaches, green grapes, and blueberries until evenly mixed.
2. Make the dressing. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the dry vanilla pudding mix and the reserved pineapple juice until smooth and slightly thickened, about 1 minute.
3. Fold in the whipped topping. Gently fold the thawed whipped topping into the pudding mixture until fully combined and creamy.
4. Dress the salad. Pour the creamy dressing over the fruit and fold gently with a rubber spatula until all the fruit is evenly coated. Take care not to break up the softer fruit pieces.
5. Chill before serving. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to overnight, to allow the flavors to meld and the dressing to set slightly around the fruit.
6. Serve cold. Spoon into individual bowls or a serving dish. Best enjoyed the same day it is dressed, though it keeps well refrigerated for up to 2 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 175 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 4g | Carbs: 34g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 135mg