Simplest Autumnal Fruit Salad.

The first "cold" snap has hit Florida and I feel that my diet should change accordingly. I'm posting over at my mother's house. The French doors are open, the jack russells are napping, the wind chimes are making their music, and its absolutely perfect outside. Damn near noon and I could spend all day in the sun and probably wouldn't even break a sweat. 

So why am I on the computer? Well, because I am getting information on my next little endeavor, which will be a one night camping trip Wed. night. The low should get to be around 45 degrees F and I'm trying to decide what to cook that night if I don't catch any fish. I'm still rather new to wilderness cooking. This much I know, lots of tin foil. So more on how that went later. 

I've moved onto the next food pairing duo: parmesan and chestnut honey. As I mentioned before I'm a nut about honey and chestnut sounded just divine. I anticipated a warming, nutty, possibly toasted tasting honey, with a thicker viscosity than most. While it was a nice, rich, amber colour the flavour was biting and a little more floral than I'd like. I'm not wild about it on its own. 

I had to figure something to do with it though, so I took a ripe bosc pear, chopped it up, topped it with some freshly crumbled aged parmesan cheese, and tossed these both in the chestnut honey. It was warming, fresh, light, and slightly musky at the same time. And when I say musky I mean that hearty aged cheese flavour. Musky is a good thing to me. Musky is earthy and sensual and adds a soul warming depth to food. This dish was surprisingly filling, but I think "satisfying" is a better term. Next time I'd toast the parmesan to increase the nuttiness, and possibly some type of pepper, maybe just the slightest sprinkling of fresh crushed white pepper to give it a hint of heat. Might even shred it and cook the parmesan till crisp to give added textural depth.