Honeydew — Prosciutto Salad — The Other Thing on the Picnic Table

Memorial Day weekend and the first proper warm weather — high sixties Friday, mid-seventies Saturday, the kind of stretch that gets the lawn growing in earnest and the mosquitoes thinking about their season. I went to Lakeview Cemetery Monday morning, as I do every Memorial Day, with a small jar of maple syrup for my father's grave and a small bunch of lilac for Helen's. The graves are in the same plot — Edward and the elder Helen, my parents, on the left side, my Helen and the empty space beside her where I will eventually go on the right. I stood for fifteen minutes. I did not say anything. I touched the top of Helen's headstone with my hand the way I always do, which is the small gesture of physical connection that I have not been able to stop performing in the four years since she went into the ground. The headstone is granite and cold and is the only physical contact I have left with her body, and I touch it the way one touches a thing that matters.

The cemetery had a new groundskeeper this year — a woman in her thirties, with short hair and good boots and the competent posture of someone who has worked outside for her whole adult life. She nodded to me as I came up the path. She did not interrupt me when I stood at the graves. She continued her work at the section across the way, edging the grass along a row of older headstones, and when I left I stopped and told her the cemetery looked good. She said: thank you, sir. She did not ask my name. I did not give it. The exchange was complete in the way that the exchanges between strangers in a cemetery should be complete — brief, polite, mutually respectful of the work each of us was doing in our different ways in the same place.

Made a charcoal grilled chicken Sunday — the first grill of the season, the Weber dragged out of the shed, the charcoal lit with the chimney starter, the chicken legs marinated in lemon and garlic and oregano and salt for an hour before going on the grill at medium heat for forty minutes with the lid on. The grilled chicken is the announcement that the season has shifted, the way the first stew is the announcement that the season has shifted in October, the rituals of the cooking calendar marking the year more reliably than any clock or calendar can mark it. I ate the chicken at the picnic table on the back porch with a green salad from the first lettuces in the row and a glass of beer, and the dog sat at my feet hoping for something and getting nothing, because grilled chicken bones are not for dogs.

Bill texted Sunday evening. He had grilled too, his first of the season, a couple of pork chops that he claimed had been the best pork chops of his life. I told him that the first grill of the year always tastes like the best grill of the year because the body has gone six months without it, and that he should reserve final judgment until he is in his fourth grilled supper of the season and the novelty has worn off. He said: cynic. I said: realist. We are both. We have been both for years now. The texting of two grandfathers about the first grilled supper of their respective Mays is the entire correspondence in miniature, and the miniature is the whole.

The chicken that Sunday was the main event, but what I keep thinking about is what was beside it — the green salad from the first lettuces, cool and simple, the contrast to the smoke and char that made the whole meal feel balanced rather than just fed. A honeydew and prosciutto salad is that same idea made a little more deliberate: sweet cold melon, salty cured meat, fresh mint to cut through both, a little lemon to sharpen the edges. It is the kind of thing you bring to the picnic table when you want the meal to feel like the season deserves, which is to say more than adequate, which is to say good.

Honeydew & Prosciutto Salad

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 15 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1/2 medium honeydew melon, rind removed, cut into 1-inch cubes or balls (about 4 cups)
• 3 oz prosciutto, thinly sliced and torn into rough pieces
• 3 cups baby arugula
• 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, torn
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon flaky sea salt, plus more to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Optional: 2 oz fresh ricotta or thinly shaved Parmesan for serving

Instructions

1. Prepare the melon. Remove the rind and seeds from the honeydew. Cut the flesh into 1-inch cubes or use a melon baller for a more composed presentation. Pat the pieces lightly dry with a paper towel so the dressing doesn’t run thin.
2. Make the dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, flaky salt, and several grinds of black pepper. Taste and adjust — it should be bright and a little sharp to balance the sweetness of the melon.
3. Assemble the salad. Spread the arugula across a wide serving platter. Arrange the honeydew over the greens in an even layer. Drape the torn prosciutto loosely over the top so it sits in natural folds rather than lying flat.
4. Dress and finish. Drizzle the lemon-olive oil dressing evenly over the platter. Scatter the torn mint leaves across the top. If using, add small spoonfuls of ricotta or shave Parmesan over the salad with a vegetable peeler.
5. Serve immediately. This salad does not hold — the arugula wilts quickly once dressed and the melon releases water as it sits. Bring it to the table right before eating, ideally cold from the refrigerator.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 160 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 14g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 520mg