When you love food as much as I do, life on a diet is fairly sad. Good for ya, bad for baking joy. Good for losing nine pounds, bad for kitchen craftiness. I have, however, discovered some cool things the last few months. I love grapefruit. Love it like heart-on-fire, could gorge on it morning, noon, and night. I love salad sans dressing. It only took me 31 years to discover that I hate salad dressing in all its forms, especially because it makes the lettuce wilt. I’m even on shaky terms with oil & balsamic vinegar now since discovering that all I really need to coat my greens is lemon and pepper, or the moisture from avocado and tomato — these things are enough.

One food I have been missing, surprisingly:

Feta. Good lord. I have not been missing much of the cheese/dairy family, but have been dying for the salty, tangy, thick-on-the-tongue flavor of feta. Which, is why when I saw Smitten Kitchen’s recipe for a greek salad with lemon and oregano, and knew I already had most ingredients on hand, I could not not make it. In other words, I made it, feta included.

The only modification I made to the Smitten Kitchen recipe was adding mint instead of oregano — strawberry-mint grown in my very own kitchen windowsill. And the way I ate this salad (and then ate some more) you would have thought it was my last meal on earth or something…

Other things I have been missing: pizza, not surprisingly. My pizza stone has been sitting cold and solo for months. But for a memorial day barbecue on Monday I do have some baking on deck. Check back soon for a triple-berry bundt cake in honor of berry season — cherry season, too.

Kissing fruit. Looks like a double-coconut.

One year ago: Plum upside-down cake