After the eat-fest that was Fourth of July weekend (er, well, my life in general), Toni and I decided we would try to tone down our diets. It’s the best time of year to do so anyway: produce is at it’s finest, and it’s so hot in this city that one hardly wants to turn on the stove. Mom gave me a few ideas, via our friend Chef Jacques Pepin, for some quick and easy summer salads. Yesterday, we tried the first one.

The ingredients in this salad can all be found in most grocery stores: canned artichoke hearts (I prefer those preserved in water, not oil), caponata, pimentos, green olives, parsley, a bit of jalapeno, and cheddar cheese. Everything was chopped into bite-size pieces and tossed with a bit of olive oil. We let it sit to let the flavors meld while we cut up fruit for another no-cook salad: cantaloupe, apples, kiwi, and banana.

The marinated vegetable salad was a success, with the predominant flavors of each vegetable shining through. We ate it with a bit of toasted baguette. The fruit salad, on the other hand, was a huge disappointment. We had bought the produce at the Food Emporium near Toni’s place, since the market was not open on Tuesday, and almost everything we bought was absolutely tasteless (the watermelon, the beacon of summer, didn’t even make it into the salad!) Thank goodness for the kiwi, which redeemed it, at least a little…