Matt Shean

A middle-aged bearded man dressed as a teenaged girl mermaid for halloween.

In keeping with annual tradition, today I brought in a guest lecturer for my Genetics class. My students were very excited to welcome Princess Ariel to come talk about RNA modification and intron splicing today.

I'm just the guy to make a pithy joke about Dunning-Kruger and Imposter Syndrome being 2 sides of the same coin, but then who am I to think I'm qualified to be that funny?

I have a vewy gweat fwiend in Wome named Pontius Piwate!

Yet another photo of a finished fruit salad.

You will dread the onset of Fall, and lament the long, fruitless Winters of discontent. Days will stretch into endless unbroken dreams of that taste of life, of God, on your tongue. You will crave baptism in the thin purplish-brown holy water of mingled fruit juices. Enjoy!
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Now you've been taught, there is no longer any excuse. Once you've tried this, you will see 'fruit cocktail' and premade fruit salads as the coarse, repugnant things they are. You'll never go back, cursed to spend weary months waiting for early summer when things ripen.
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Serve as is. Do not adulterate. If you twist my arm, I'll let you sprinkle cinnamon on top, and whipped cream (ideally homemade) works well. But this beast needs no added sugar, and don't you dare add a fake sugar syrup to it!
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Now, throw away your pits, peels, and rinds. Clean up your work area, and prepare yourself. This is the closest I've ever come to a religious experience, and it will change your world. Sex will lose meaning & colors will sprout scents.
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Photo of a finished fruit salad

But trust me, it’s worth it. A fruit salad fresh off the cutting board is delicious, but immature. Let it sit, let it chill.
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Congratulations, your fruit salad is almost complete. Now, cover the bowl w/ some clear wrap, and chill it for at least 1 hr before serving. Lets the pieces macerate and the juices mingle. You'll thank me. This will be the longest hour of your life.
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a woman holding a plate of food with the words you just fold it in Alt: a woman holding a plate of food with the words you just fold it in

Fold in the squishies. Get them somewhat homogenously mixed, and you are done!
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A photo of 2 kiwis, laid out in varying stages of culinary dismemberment.

Kiwis – Peel them, trim off the ends, and then slice 'em once from pole to pole, along their long axis. Lay 'em out in parallel, then cut across each half like latitude lines. Then a single perpendicular cut from north to south. Lay them with the bananas.
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An uninspired photo of a banana, stripped of its peel, lying naked on a glistening cutting board. The banana is butchered, sliced into lifeless disks of a thick tropical paste. The cutting board bears the stains of the lifeblood of the fruits that have fallen to the blade before, previous victims of the cruel chef bent on gastronomic frugicide.

The Squishies
At this point, toss your salad well, my pretties. From here on out, it's all gentle caresses, no rough stuff. Peel your bananas and kiwis. Slice the bananas into rings, leave them on the cutting board.
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Photo of a ring of watermelon, diced in a Euclidean grid, into cuboid vessels of flavored water embedded in a dissolvable red cellulose matrix, against every law and convention of all that is right and holy in the universe.

Slice the ring in half, height-wise, so you have 2 thinner rings on top of each other. Not it's a simple few grid cuts, and you've got small watermelon cubes, to mingle w your honeydew balls. Yeah, you heard me. You can cut these as big as the grapes if you choose. Toss it in the bowl.
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The white ones just float around your mouth with the consistency of a dead cricket, ruining your watermelon tasting experience. Dig ‘em out.
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I hate “seedless” watermelons. Sure, the big black seeds are gone, but the little white seeds? They’re still there, there’s more of them, and they’ve always been texturally worse than the blacks ones anyway. At least those you could easily spit out.
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Take your watermelon, and cut out a ring 1 1/2" thick & lay it on your cutting board. Slice away the rind, trim off any white. Dig out any obvious seeds. Fun fact, watermelon rind combats ED. Leave too much behind, and I take no responsibility for your actions.
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Photo of a ball of cantaloupe, with a honeydew in the background. No idea why I didn't include a ball of honeydew in the photo.

Cut a 3rd out of your honeydew, and cut your cantaloupe in half. Dig out the seeds w/ a spoon. Grab your melon baller, and ball those fuckers right into the bowl. Down to the rind. No baller? Warm up that hand, baby, bec you're in dicing town again! Remove the rind 1st tho.
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He dislikes melon in fruit salad because they only ever taste like pineapple or mandarin oranges. That's NOT the melon's fault! It's the goddamned pineapple. Blame where blame is due, people!
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Melons
My buddy Casey saw one of my fruit salads once, and tried to tell me I did it wrong because I added melons. Case, I love you, but you're as wrong as an ass on a jellyfish. Can anyone spot his mistake? He failed to consider the rules of fruit salads. NO CITRUS, AND NO FUCKING PINEAPPLE.
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Hang in there, you're doing great, and we're in the home stretch. All that's left are the melons, and the squishies. The fine dicing is all done, and there's just some minor chopping left. Massage your hand&wrist, and let's finish this.
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It's a color explosion! The fruit salad is nearing sentience. This is a photo of a fruit salad that has reached a full stage 3 of 5.

Stand them on their head, and slice them along the long axis into a couple thin strips. Lay the strips out in 2 piles, middle of the fruit down. Dice em. I go 1/4" x 1/2". Add them to the salad and stir.
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Wait 3 more hours, and it’s all bruise with white-green fuzz. I’ve been hurt by strawberries before, and I can’t trust them. But if you can find firm unbruised not moldy strawberries anywhere, get them ready.
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Let's talk strawberries. I’m not a fan in general, but they add a lot here. Cut out the stems, and trim away the bruises. Because unless you picked it yourself that morning, a quarter of every fucking strawberry is just bruise where fruit should be, waiting to ruin your day.
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A photo of the fruit salad partway into its chrysalis of color. Greens and blues have been added, but no reds or purples

...a firm intact grape breaks you out of the religious trance that is eating this dish. So, by cutting the in half, we make them more pliable, less oppositional. Do it.

Blueberries? In the bowl. Move on.
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Cut the grapes in half, and throw them in. But Matt, I hear you say, surely grapes are small enough! Could be. But with grapes, the issue is actually the globe shape. It’s too strong. While the rest of the fruit salad is a smooth consistency -
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The Color Bringers.
If you've got a cherry pitter, now's the time to use it. Cut the cherries in half and throw them into the salad next, sans-pit. If you don't have a pitter, then just halve 'em and dig it out. That way you can suck all the bits of cherry off the pits. Yum.
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Photo of a fruit salad in stage 2 of 5. Hey, this is really starting to shape up. Maybe it's not madness to have the pieces that small, now that they are starting to mingle together

Here's where your fruit salad is at - Groups 1 and 2 are done. 3 to go.
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Oh no! The nectarines are being given the apple treatment! Photo of a nectarine cut into pieces far too small for any sane human.

Dice your pitted stone fruit the same size as your apple bits. I'm not kidding on this. If they’re very soft, you can leave them larger, maybe ½” on 2 sides. Toss them all into the bowl, give a quick stir, and let’s move on.
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Photo of a peach cut into a reasonable number of pieces

Give 'em a longitude cut all around the globe, and through the seam. Do your best to separate the halves & remove the pit. You may need to dig it, or fragments of it it they're really ripe, out. Not gonna lie, I really destroy a lot of peaches at this point.
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They’ll also tart the whole shebang and pucker your lips up tighter than the Church Lady. Find ‘em in that sweet spot where they're firm enough to cut but they still smell ripe.
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