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| One of the few things that has grown in my garden this year. |
Watermelon: It’s sweet, hydrating, delightfully crunchy, and packed with vitamin C and lycopene. In fact, I just googled “watermelon” and found that, according to one at least marginally reliable website (they self-proclaim “We Are #1 in the World,” which should count for something), watermelon is one of the world’s healthiest foods. So what’s not to love?
Since you asked . . . how about the hour it takes to open and cut up a watermelon so it’s edible? Now that the fruit comes in seedless varieties, I can’t complain about pits (Eric recently asked me if we couldn’t plant seedless watermelon next year, which is definitely a good question. Also an oxymoron, for those AP English 12 students working on such things. Or possibly a paradox — we’re a little shaky on the difference between those two over here). But by the time I wrangle that melon into submission, I and the countertop are covered in sticky juice. And woe if it drips on the floor. Those elusive drops of sugar water will evade rag and mop until they’ve collected all the dust in the room. You can feel your foot sticking as you step on them, but you can’t find them with the rag. And if you opt to cut the watermelon into wedges and serve it to teenagers, they will throw the rinds into your bushes, having apparently been schooled in the fact that watermelon rinds are biodegradable. The rinds, however, do not biodegrade before they attract ants. I admit that this littering issue is the fault of the teenagers, not the watermelon, but it is still a pain.
The other annoying thing about watermelon is that there is so much of it. Yesterday I cut up a small watermelon, having first pulled a good-sized glass bowl out of the cupboard to hold the pieces. As I was cutting, I experienced something akin to the miracle of the loaves and fishes, whereby before the watermelon was half-cut, the bowl was overflowing. I gave up and stuck the other half in the fridge, where it is taking up as much space as a milk gallon and dripping sticky juice all over the eggs.
Watermelon may be one of my biggest food annoyances, but there are other foods that seem inordinately challenging to prepare — mangos, pineapple, avocados (unless you are doing guacamole, which requires that you mush the avocado; it ends up mush anyway), even grapefruit. And there are other foods that come in amounts well beyond their usefulness to me. An example is cabbage, although that at least keeps fresh for quite a while. I have been trying to cook my way through a head of cabbage for the past two weeks, and I will admit that we have had several delicious meals out of it, including two Moosewood Cookbook Old County Pies and a tofu and cabbage stir-fry. My family is also a little sick of Indonesian cabbage salad, though I could eat it every day. I still have about a third of the head left. The stuff just expands.
Fresh herbs are like that as well. I cringe when I read a recipe that calls for fresh mint, dill, or especially parsley, because I know that more than half of the bunch will rot in my fridge before I can use it. I do have basil and oregano growing out back, and I tried to grow parsley. For some reason, that last herb went to seed after the first harvest, and I was too dispirited by the fact that the bunnies had eaten the tomatoes and the cabbage moths had eaten the broccoli to try to replant the parsley. Scallions are also a pain. Why does the grocery store not sell scallions by the stem? Recipes usually call for two or four chopped scallions, and I am left with the other half of the bunch turning to slime in the cheese drawer.
I can hear many people’s thoughts as they read this blog, because I am thinking them too. First, why do I not plan my meals better, cooking several recipes that use mint in one week, thereby avoiding waste and annoyance? The answer is that I don’t know. That’s probably a really good idea. I did do it this week with scallions, so I am making progress, maybe. The second obvious question is, if I don’t like difficult fruit and rotting herbs, why do I not use convenience foods — precut fruit and dried herbs? The answer to that one is easier, though pretty silly, when I think about it. I do use some dried herbs, but dried parsley flakes, garlic salt, and onion powder always feel like a cop-out to me, as does pre-cut fruit. Buying them makes me feel like I might be out of the running for supermom of the decade. I can hear the person behind me in line at the grocery store thinking, “I see that prepared pineapple, and I bet you are hiding Lunchables in there, too.” On reflection, that is actually probably my own thoughts I’m hearing. To be clear, my freezer holds mango and pineapple chunks (cut and packaged by some factory that serves Giant grocery stores, not by me), and my spice cupboard has not one, but two jars of parsley flakes, so I’m judgmental and inconsistent. And in the interest of full disclosure, I also buy Cheeze-Its, though I only eat them on long car trips when I’m bored.
Of course, your biggest question, and mine too, should be: Why am I so ungrateful? God made this incredible variety of delicious and healthful food, and put me in a place where I have access to it and money to buy it, and here I am griping about a sticky counter. What in the world is wrong with me? Good question. See Genesis Chapter 3.
Because I am a basically optimistic person, I hate to end this blog on a down note, so I will conclude with a list of my current favorite ingredients: chick peas, quinoa, kale, sweet potatoes, avocados (you can see I’m a little conflicted about the avocado), and garlic. In fact, I love garlic in recipes so much that I never even complain about having to peel and chop it. It’s even worth having garlicky fingers for the rest of the day. It’s that good.
