Wonderful Watermelon

My grandpap always used to say that watermelon wasn't good until the 4th of July. After years of gardening myself, I think he was so very right. My grandfather moved from Italy as a small boy after his mother died with his father to Venezuela. He was a sheep herder before emigrating to the United States and raising a family of 7 children. Though he had no formal education, he was one of the smartest men I can remember. He passed away when I was about 5 but obviously left an important legacy to me ... that the only ingredients were fresh ingredients. It's amazing what you can pick up from people and what they impress you with even as a 5 year old! If you could see that man's vegetables and gardens, you'd understand what I meant. He lived in the coal mining hills of Pennsylvania, not so far from West Virginia. In the 5 room company house duplex, they were lucky to have running water ... cold water, mind you. (That makes me think bath time was really no fun!) So when it was time to water the garden, the oldest kids put a pole across their back, took 2 metal buckets (one hanging on each side) down to the river to fill up. This is how the garden got watered every other day ... unless, of course, they were blessed with a good solid rain. And To feed a family of 9, trust me ... he had oodles of tomato, pepper, cucumber and musk melon plants. This was the food they had to put up for the winter to eat. What a great man, And what a great legacy to leave us all! I think my 3 dozen tomato plants are outrageous to take care of with my soaker hoses and mulch so that all I have to do is turn on my outdoor faucet, come back into my air conditioned home and an hour later, shut it off. Imagine caring for 10 or 12 dozen tomato and 10 or 12 dozen pepper plants the way he did! What a man.....



I have a stray sugar baby watermelon that grew into my cantaloupe patch this year. Last summer, the heat was so intense that my sugar babies seemed to "boil" from the 106 degree temperatures and rot right there in the patch. So I decided to plant heartier cantaloupe this year that might not feel the heat so badly. I guess God destined me to have some watermelon this season as one stray vine emerged from the dirt and I just had to let it go!

Although I didn't use my sugar babies for this as they are nowhere near ready (only yellow blossoms as of this post), I did purchase a deee-licious oblong watermelon (called a Sangria, I believe....) from our farmers market. It was there for the testing and was so juice, sweet and red that I had to buy the 35 pound monster!

Which leads me to the next couple of posts....... how to use the monster watermelon! I have to say that I am pretty brave when it comes to trying to mix flavors and such so it's not unusual for me to mix savory and sweet. I tried this salad out on my friends on a lovely boat cruise last night and we all agreed it was pretty amazing!

Watermelon Salad

• 3 cups of cubed watermelon, seeded and cut into 3/4 inch dice
• 1 cup of cherry tomatoes cut in half
• 1 medium cucumber, cut into small dice
• 1/4 medium onion, finely diced
• 10 basil leaves, cut into chiffonade (ribbons)
• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
• Splash of white wine (or other white) vinegar
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 medium clove of garlic
• 5 tblsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp dry ground mustard

In a medium bowl, combine the watermelon, tomatoes, cucumber and onion. Chiffonade the basil by stacking all 10 leaves on top of each other in the same direction, roll the leaves to make a basil "cigar" and slice crosswise on the leaves thinly, about 1/16". Now, if you're knife skills are not that good ... don't stress! Thicker slices of basil leaves will NOT ruin the salad! Add that to the veggies and watermelon and mix to combine.

I am so lucky that my roommate has a "Magic Bullet" as I truly believe it to be one of the best inventions of the 21st Century! It's like a blender X 10!!! So if you don't have one, no need to spend $59 to get the set-up, just use your blender as the dressing for this needs to be smooth and silky with no chunks of garlic.

To easily juice the lemon, place it in a microwave for 10 seconds or roll with a decent pressure on your countertop. When you cut it open, it should be much easier to juice and will give up lots more from it's cells than if you just try to squeeze it. Squeeze the lemon juice into the blender and add the rest of the ingredients to the blender and blend until smooth. Pour the dressing over the salad ... you may not need the entire amount of dressing you made depending on how juicy your watermelon and veggies were..... save the remainder for a salad or as a dressing on grilled chicken..... YUM!

Mix the dressing thoroughly into the salad and put the salad in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to serve good and cold!

I happened to have some fresh blackberries that I used as a garnish and the sweet tart explosion of blackberry was a great addition to the salad. You could use strawberries or fresh blueberries too .... almost anything!

Now get out there and try something crazy and fun like this. If you can change the recipe for fresh things you may have, let me know about it! And as always, until next time, ciao!