I’m a Maryland girl. Though I don’t live there anymore, I grew up in Rockville, a D.C. suburb. Maryland is synonymous with crab, or at least it used to be, so I was happy to see this week’s choice for French Fridays with Dorie was a crab and grapefruit salad.

For this salad, lump crabmeat is gently tossed with a confetti of tiny chopped vegetables. I loved the colorful array of red pepper, cucumber, scallions, and jalapeño pepper. I went with the bonne idée and added some diced avocado too. And, of course, there was grapefruit, both segments of the fruit and grapefruit juice for the acid.

A handy-dandy grapefruit spoon, with its serrated edge, made quick work of cutting the grapefruit into segments. I’ll have to remember this inspired trick when I make winter fruit salad.

The avocado made me think of Mexican, so I added some chopped cilantro and garnished the salad with cilantro leaves instead of the suggested mint.

As I’ve mentioned before, my husband doesn’t like fruit mixed with a savory course, but he made a rare exception and agreed to try out the salad (he really likes crab). He thought it wasn’t bad, even if fruit was one of the ingredients.

Overall, I’d call this recipe a success, though I’m not really sure where it fits in the calendar for seasonal eating. With the crab, it’s more of a meal salad, but, in winter, when grapefruits are plentiful, a cold meal is not as enticing as in summer when citrus feels out of place.

In any case, the salad was a lovely light supper. I served it with a delicious new kind of lavash chips I found at Costco. It would make an even lovelier elegant lunch. The leftovers weren’t bad for a brown bag lunch at work either.

You can read about the other bloggers refreshing salads here. We don’t post the recipes, but I found it here (look at recipe 11 of 21). Or, you can always find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.

By the way, I ordered a used copy of Baking with Julia. It’s on its way, so I’m hoping to join up with Tuesdays with Dorie, another social cooking adventure, starting in April, depending on when the book arrives.