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2 Divide the strawberries among 4 bowls and top with dollops of sour cream. Pour about 2 tablespoons of the warm port syrup over each serving.

CANTALOUPE WITH BLACK PEPPER AND MINT

serves 8 • TIME: 10 minutes preparation, 30 minutes refrigeration

Cantaloupe Balls and Minted Cantaloupe are two super-quick dessert recipes found in many southern community cookbooks. The recipe for Cantaloupe Balls in The Charlotte Cookbook, published by the Charlotte, North Carolina, Junior League, calls for mint jelly, which must have been a more common ingredient in groceries and (perhaps homemade) on pantry shelves around the mid-century. We’ve found that authentic mint jelly can be difficult to find these days; the commercial brands are often made with artificial color and flavorings.

When we make our own easy cantaloupe dessert, we toss the melon balls in a small amount of mint simple syrup—which is very easy to make, using fresh mint, water, and sugar. Even if mint doesn’t grow like a weed where you live, you can find fresh mint in most supermarkets year-round. If you’re truly strapped for time, skip the syrup and simply snip a quantity of fresh mint to toss with the cantaloupe. We’ve added the black pepper for intrigue and because we love how it tempers the sweetness of the melon and the mint.

8 sprigs fresh mint

6 tablespoons sugar

⅛ teaspoon kosher salt

1 ripe 3-pound cantaloupe, halved and seeded (see Cantaloupe Shopping Notes)

Coarsely ground black pepper

1 Strip the leaves from 6 of the mint sprigs and put the leaves in a small saucepan. Add 3 tablespoons water, the sugar, and the salt, and set the pan over low heat. Stir with a wooden spoon, bruising the mint against the sugar with the back of the spoon until the sugar has dissolved completely and the mint leaves have shriveled and are no longer bright green, 5 to 6 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, cover it, and set aside in a cool spot.

2 While the syrup cools, use a 1-inch melon baller to scoop out the cantaloupe, letting the balls fall into a large bowl; you should have about 1 quart melon balls.

3 When the mint syrup is cool enough to touch, strain it into the cantaloupe in the bowl, and toss to coat. Grind black pepper over the melon to taste, and chill in the refrigerator, covered, for 30 minutes or up to 2 days.

4 Strip the leaves from the remaining 2 mint stems. Toss the cantaloupe in the bowl, and serve the cantaloupe and syrup in tumblers or bowls, garnished with the fresh mint leaves.

cantaloupe shopping notes ••• Selecting a ripe cantaloupe is easy. You simply find the stem end of the melon and sniff it the way you would a glass of wine. A ripe melon will smell just like the flavor of cantaloupe; an unripe melon will have no aroma. You can double-check by pressing your thumb gently against the opposite end of the melon; the surface should give slightly, but not so much that the skin is pierced. If it is, the melon is way overripe.

garnish it light

•••

Drizzle whole or lowfat buttermilk over the cantaloupe balls just before serving. When we go this route, we treat the mint syrup and black pepper as garnishes that go on the dessert after the buttermilk has been poured over the fruit. That way, the buttermilk doesn’t bury the mint and the black pepper, deadening their effect on the palate.

garnish it rich

•••

Thick yogurt—particularly whole-milk Greek yogurt—enriches this dessert considerably, in addition to giving it that pleasing buttermilk-like tang. Alternate spoonfuls of yogurt with the melon balls in the tumbler so it looks like a parfait, and garnish the top with the fresh mint leaves.

BANANA PUDDING PARFAITS

serves 6 • TIME: 30 minutes preparation, 30 minutes cooling, 30 minutes refrigeration

Banana pudding is one of the South’s most cherished twentieth-century desserts, and there are a million and one ways to make it. The recipe we grew up with, a staple of school lunchrooms, is made from a box of artificially flavored banana pudding in an aluminum pan with a