Caprese Impostor Salad

"Fruit Salad, Yummy, Yummy" - The Wiggles

If you aren't familiar with this viral tune, you must download the song sung by the famous children's band from down under Australia.  And please listen to at least half of the song before reading further. 

You might find yourself singing it while waiting for your morning coffee at Starbucks or while you are in a department meeting.  You never know when it will sneak up on you.  I find it best to scream the lyrics of this song when you and your significant other are arguing and you just want to be done fighting and you don't care who's right or wrong anymore. 

"WHY CAN'T YOU JUST DO [insert responsibility of choice] INSTEAD OF WAITING FOR ME TO ASK YOU???"
"FRUIT SALAD YUMMY YUMMY!"

See?  This aussie tune can be the solution for many things.  Australian anything is a one-way direct flight to coolness.  Recently I met Aussie Sarah Henry of Lettuce Eat Kale who is one energetic spunky sassy talented lady...I felt like I have known her for years, because just after 24 hours of meeting each other, words like "flatulence" and "pellets" were part of our banter...like 12 year old boys.  I'm going to start a joint blog with her called "Lettuce Be Juvenile".  Then there's Curtis Stone, the take-home chef who finds women in the supermarket and helps them cook a meal at their home.  The season didn't work out too well because his dangerously good looks posed a major safety hazard in the kitchen.  If he spotted me at the supermarket, I would run in the opposite direction, because I'm probably wearing my gym clothes and my hair is demonstrating the powers of an electrical socket.  And finally, there's the Wiggles...who must have been the inspiration for the recent Fruit of the Loom underwear label ad campaigns: Grown men enveloped in fruit costumes, singing. 

After all of this fruit salad talk, you can't help but be inspired!  I created a very simple tropical fruit salad imitating the traditional Italian Caprese salad.  In place of tomato, mozzarella, and basil, I combined sliced strawberry, flesh of young coconut, and sliced kiwi, respectively.  I had to think very hard about what would be the mozzarella understudy.  There are few white colored fruits, but flesh of coconut works well visually and texturally.  Lychee fruits would be a good substitute also, but it won't lay as flat.  This would make a wonderful snack and a light satisfying dessert.  I might recommend serving it with a modest scoop of Lemon-Thyme Sorbet from The Cilantropist!

This dish says a lot without a lot of work behind it.  You know that guy at the office that talks big in the department meeting, wowing management with 3-syllable words, but in actuality he does didley squat and just spends the day hanging out at everyone else's cubicle? 

Yeah, that's what this dish is...an Impostor. 

The challenge is actually opening the young coconut - it's about as easy as removing a ship from a bottle.
* This post is dedicated to my $6 Ikea end table, who was sacrificed in this project. Rest in pieces.*