Reflections on Watermelon

My love for watermelon is encoded in my DNA. My grandfather never failed to stop at a roadside fruit stand advertising watermelons, and he waxed poetically about the heavenly taste of Black Diamond watermelons.

Like the poets who write of unrequited love, I abstain from indulging in my love of watermelons. Even though you can find watermelons in the supermarkets as early as spring, I don't buy my first melon until July. Mother Nature, not man, dictates when melons are in their prime.

I'll never buy one of those personal, tiny watermelons I sometimes spy in the grocery store. To me watermelons are about community and sharing. Eating watermelon shouldn't be a solitary endeavor. Watermelons, like most foods, taste better when eaten with friends. Beside eating a watermelon without sharing is selfish.

I think a watermelon tastes better when it's been iced down in a cooler.

Watermelon is best eaten outdoors.

I love holding a watermelon. When I carry a watermelon from my car to my house, I feel ripe with opportunity and anticipation. Maybe this is much the same way a pregnant women feels when she lays her hands across her protruding belly. Or maybe not.

A giddy, life-is-good euphoria overwhelms me when I slice into a watermelon. I love it when that sweet, subtle scent wafts from the melon

Are watermelons and cucumbers relatives? Not only are they similar in appearance, they both possess that subtle, fresh scent that I love.

I see recipes for watermelon sorbets, watermelon margaritas, watermelon mojitos, and various other concoctions, and even though I find them tempting, I prefer to enjoy watermelon in its purest form. If I could eat them off the vine, I would.

These are just a few of my thoughts on watermelon. Next year I might take the plunge and turn into a poem, an ode to watermelon.

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