Dragonfruit, Mango, Jicama, & Corn Salad for #thebookclubcookbookCC

Here we are at May's #thebookclubcookbookCC event. It's hard to believe that we only have two more months in this year-long journey to explore - and cook from - The Book Club Cookbook, Revised Edition: Recipes and Food for Thought from Your Book Club's Favorite Books and Authors by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp.*

Judy, Vicki, and their publisher, Tarcher-Penguin, have provided the hosting bloggers with copies of the book plus copies to giveaway each month of the project. Woohoo. Incredibly generous.

This month Danielle at Mostly Food and Crafts along with Wendy at A Day in the Life on the Farm selected Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.** Click to read Wendy's invitation. She shared the recipe for Mojitos, but invited us to find inspiration in any of the pages.

Believe it or not, I once created an entire dinner party around the Mojito. I made a Cuban feast for one of my best friend's birthdays. But, for this event, I decided to go with a variation of the second recipe Gelman and Krupp's book.

On the Page...
I remember reading the book in high school. And, I think, I remember liking it. Since high school has been over twenty-five years ago, I decided to pick up a copy and re-read it.

Let me say this: I like Marquez's writing. One Hundred Years of Solitude is definitely one of my top 20 books of all time. I enjoy the mysticism or magical realism in his prose. But I have to admit that, at this stage in my life, I found this story a little bit creepy and the main character unsavory.

The main characters are Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. As teenagers, they fall in love and forge a relationship, exchanging love letters and meeting in secret with the help of her aunt. When her father discovers the affair, he banishes her to another city. When she returns, she breaks off the relationship. Eventually she marries Dr. Juvenal Urbino, a doctor committed to the eradication of cholera. He is rational and modern where Florentino is irrational and archaic.

Touted as one of the great love stories of all time,  I cannot disagree more. Two teens fall in love, but the female teen marries another and the male teen attempts to heal his broken heart with rampant promiscuity (think over 600 affairs!); then when the female's husband dies half a century later the broken-hearted male reappears to reinsert himself into her life and declare his undying love for her. "Waiting for your true love" doesn't mean sleeping with everything that moves until your true love's husband dies. Ick. I guess I'm getting stodgy and conservative in my middle age.

Besides his final affair that was with a child, what bothered me most was that the novel conflates love and sex. They are certainly related, but you can have one without the other. And I do not think Florentino understood love at all.

On the Plate...
As much as I disliked the book, I loved this salad. I adored the simplicity and marveled at the richness of flavors from such a simple preparation.

Ingredients

• 1 C dragon fruit, diced (outside reserved for serving)
• 1 C tomato, diced
• 1 C mango, diced
• 1 C roasted corn kernels, removed from cob
• 1 C jicama, diced
• 1/4 C fresh herbs (I used a mixture of mint and cilantro)
• 1 to 2 t jalapeno, diced
• juice from 1 organic lemon
• freshly ground salt
• freshly ground pepper

Procedure

Place all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Toss to coat everything with lemon juice. Let stand for 5 minutes. You can spoon the salad back into the dragon fruit skins or serve it in a small bowl.

Giveaway

This month Danielle at Mostly Food and Crafts along with Wendy at A Day in the Life on the Farm, this month's co-hosts, are giving away a copy of the book.* Enter to win a copy of the cookbook so you can join us in future months, if you wish!

One of our lucky readers - US and Canada only! - can enter to win a copy ofThe Book Club Cookbook, Revised Edition: Recipes and Food for Thought from Your Book Club's Favorite Books and Authors by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp, courtesy of Tarcher-Penguin. Giveaway runs from May 1st till May 31st at 6 o'clock PM, Pacific time. Please see terms and conditions in the rafflecopter widget below. Many thanks to Tarcher Books. You may find Tarcher: on the web, on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Pinterest.

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*Disclosure: Danielle and Wendy received a complimentary copy of The Book Club Cookbook, Revised Edition: Recipes and Food for Thought from Your Book Club's Favorite Books and Authors by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp as an opportunity to give a copy away. Opinions are our own. We received no further compensation for our posts.

**This blog currently has a partnership with Amazon.com in their affiliate program, which gives me a small percentage of sales if you buy a product through a link on my blog. It doesn't cost you anything more. If you are uncomfortable with this, feel free to go directly to Amazon.com and search for the item of your choice.