Honey-Yogurt Berry Salad

Summer 2024. The ISFA work deepens. Fifteen families helped. Twelve funded. The kitchen tables adding up. The faces changing — from fear to hope, from numbers-that-take to numbers-that-give. The work is harder than insurance because the work requires hope, and hope is harder to carry than numbers, but hope expands when you use it.

Emma graduates high school. June 2024. She's eighteen. The ceremony, the cap, the diploma. She's been accepted to UNI but she's not going — not yet. Gap year. The words that almost killed me: "I need a year to figure out what I want." The figuring. The waiting. The mother who believes in education the way Roger believes in land, watching her daughter choose to wait.

She's going to waitress in Minneapolis. She has a friend there. An apartment. A plan that is the absence of a plan, which is terrifying for a woman who plans forty-seven jars of canned vegetables and eight rows of planting schedules and a Thanksgiving timeline taped to the refrigerator. But Emma is not Diane. Emma is Emma. Emma organizes the world differently. Emma's gap year is Emma's garden — she's planting something I can't see yet.

The week Emma’s diploma came in the mail, I made this salad three times. There’s something about the colors — the deep blueberry blue, the red of the strawberries, all of it held together by honey and yogurt — that felt like the right answer to the feeling I couldn’t name. The ISFA families and Emma’s gap year were asking me the same thing that summer: to trust abundance I hadn’t planted myself. This salad is what I made when I needed to believe that sweetness could still hold things together, even when the plan was still invisible.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: None | Total Time: 10 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and halved
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup fresh raspberries
1 cup fresh blackberries
1 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt
3 tablespoons honey, plus more to taste
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, torn or chiffonade, for garnish

Instructions

Make the honey-yogurt dressing. In a medium bowl, whisk together the Greek yogurt, honey, vanilla extract, lemon zest, and lemon juice until smooth and creamy. Taste and add an extra drizzle of honey if you’d like it sweeter. Set aside.
Prepare the berries. Gently rinse all berries under cool water and pat dry with a paper towel or clean kitchen towel. Hull and halve the strawberries; leave smaller berries whole.
Combine the berries. In a large serving bowl, gently toss together the strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries until evenly mixed. Handle gently so the berries keep their shape.
Add the dressing. Spoon the honey-yogurt dressing over the berries, or fold it gently through for a more coated salad. Alternatively, serve the dressing on the side and let guests spoon it over their own portions.
Garnish and serve. Scatter the fresh mint leaves over the top. Serve immediately for the brightest flavor and texture. If making ahead, store berries and dressing separately and combine just before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Honey-Yogurt Berry Salad — Planting Seeds We Can’t Yet See