Pear Harvest Salad — The October Table That Holds Everyone

Karin called from Stockholm. We talk every Sunday now. Mamma's death made the sister-calls non-negotiable. Karin and Astrid and me. The three remaining girls. We hold each other up across the distance — Stockholm to Duluth to the Twin Cities, the triangle of us. We talk about the weather. We talk about the grandchildren. We talk about Mamma sometimes, but mostly we talk about whatever is in front of us. The whatever-is-in-front-of-us is the love. Lena moved to Bozeman, Montana. She is a wildlife biologist now. She sends photos of bears. The photos are on the fridge. I worry. I do not say. The worry is the standard grandmotherly worry — bears, weather, men, distance. Lena is fine. Lena has always been fine. Lena is the most self-sufficient grandchild I have, and the most distant, and the one I worry about specifically because of both of those things. Jakob got engaged. To a woman named Claire. They are both teachers. Jakob is twenty-eight. The wedding is in spring. I will bake the cake. The princess cake. The sacred cake. The cake of every Johansson wedding since I made it for my own wedding to Paul in 1988. I am sixty-something and I am still baking the cake. I will bake the cake at every Johansson wedding for as long as the hands work. I cooked Pot roast this week. Chuck roast in the dutch oven, three hours covered. Red wine. Rosemary. The October weeknight standard. The Damiano Center on Thursday. I have served soup at this center for twenty-some years. I know the regulars by name. I know the seasons of the crowd. I know that the first cold snap brings new faces. I know that the days after holidays bring the lonely ones. I know that the worst weeks of the year are not the ones that feel the worst — they are the ones in February when the cold has worn everyone down and the city has run out of tenderness. Paul would have liked this dinner. Paul would have liked this week. Paul would have liked this life. I tell him about it anyway. The telling is the keeping. I have been told, by a grief counselor, by friends, by my own children at certain anxious moments, that perhaps the constant tell-Paul thing is not healthy. I do not agree. I think it is exactly healthy. I think it is, in fact, the structural beam of my emotional architecture. The beam is solid. The house stands. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. The lake from the kitchen window has been doing what the lake does for as long as there has been a lake. The lake has carried fish and ships and the bodies of drowned sailors and the names of Ojibwe villages and the granite-cold of melted glaciers. The lake does not notice the lives along its shore. The lives notice the lake. That is the deal. That has always been the deal. It is enough.

The pot roast went in the dutch oven at four o’clock, and by the time the smell had filled the house I needed something bright alongside it — something that still tasted like October but hadn’t been cooked into softness. I’ve been making this Pear Harvest Salad for autumn dinners long enough that it has its own place at the table, the same way the wooden spoon does. Paul always said the pot roast needed something that crunched. He was right. He usually was.

Pear Harvest Salad

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 15 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 8 cups mixed salad greens (such as spinach, arugula, and butter lettuce)
• 2 ripe but firm Bosc or Bartlett pears, cored and thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup candied or toasted walnuts
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/3 cup crumbled gorgonzola or blue cheese
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

1. Make the dressing. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the olive oil, apple cider vinegar, honey, Dijon mustard, salt, and black pepper until emulsified. Taste and adjust seasoning. Set aside.
2. Prepare the greens. Wash and dry the salad greens thoroughly. Place them in a large salad bowl or arrange on a wide serving platter.
3. Slice the pears. Core the pears and slice them thinly. If not serving immediately, toss the slices in a small amount of lemon juice to prevent browning.
4. Assemble the salad. Scatter the pear slices, candied walnuts, dried cranberries, crumbled gorgonzola, and sliced red onion evenly over the greens.
5. Dress and serve. Drizzle the dressing over the salad just before serving and toss gently, or serve the dressing on the side. Serve immediately alongside the main course.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 22g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 190mg