Melon Tapping and Dripping Fruit

Sounds like the names for the first two band performing at Bonnaroo, doesn't it?

I love summer fruit because it drips.

It's not fully summer until you have had fruit drip down your arm.

The. Tomato.

Twice this week, I fixed (the correct verb for this sandwich) the proverbial tomato sandwich for lunch, and as I bit into the sandwich, a half of a large tomato (the other slices saved for dinner) sliced thinly but covering the bread, a slather of mayonnaise (full fat -- no lite chemical- ridden substitute), salt and pepper, and placed between two slices of fresh bread, the tomato juices either dripped on my hand or in my lap or plate or down my arm.

This is why God created Brawny.

The. Peach.

I followed that sandwich with a peach, washed but not peeled, that I bit into -- it too dripped down my arm.

A two or three Brawny lunch -- forget going green, Al, when you got the dripping fruit.

Watermelon.

As a kid, we lived off watermelon for dessert during the summer.

I remember sitting in the hot kitchen of my childhood, just finishing some kind of full supper of yellow squash, green beans, sliced tomatoes, or okra, sometimes a meat, and sliced white sandwich bread, stacked on a salad plate, and topped off with milk or iced tea with saccharine.

My mother, the dietitian, weaned us off sugar (as well as eggs and cheese -- but that's for another blog) in our iced tea when I was young. I don't know if the chemicals from that saccharine are messing with my short-term memory now or not.

I mean, surely that's not why I walk into rooms in my house to get something and forget why, or why I forget the name of plants in my yard. I use the "whatever that is" a lot. LOL

We passed the dishes, brimming with food, around the table, and each of us took at least one piece of bread to spread with oleo.

If I didn't like the vegetables or meat, I could always count on sliced bread with margarine to ward off the hunger till dessert.

Cause dessert was watermelon.

My mother and dad both loved watermelon. My mother and dad could tap the end of any kind of melon and declare it ripe, and rarely do I remember eating watermelon or melon that wasn't delicious. I credit my mother and father's talent for "melon tapping" to being raised on farms ---mom in Virginia -- dad in Missouri.

They also used to occasionally leave a "store bought" honeydew or cantaloupe on the counter until it was "ready." I remember the kind of sickly smell that co-mingled with the other scents of the kitchen. The sickly smell never matched the delicious taste that those melons had. I was also amazed that they turned out tasting so wonderful.

We used to cut those melons and lightly pepper them and eat till we were bursting full.

But the watermelon --- was the favorite.

As I looked at the watermelon at Publix today, all nicely cut up (rind free) and placed in small and large containers and sold for 3 and 4 dollars each -- I think of how that is so not watermelon. It has no seeds. LOL -- it's a hybrid. That's watermelon for astronauts -- all encased in clear plastic, complete with plastic fork.

As I sat at the table in that steamy kitchen in the summers of my childhood, I see my mother with the whole watermelon, and a knife the size of Nebraska, cutting the watermelon into thick slices that fit a dinner plate. With a fork and the salt shaker, we would eat and eat that piece, and when done, cut it half and put our mouths to the rind. It was so satisfying and filling.

Delightful. Delicious. Decadent.

And the best part -- the juice would run down the arm, and we'd catch it with those white, paper napkins bought in bulk where you got 3,000 for a dollar. LOL

Good times.

So, tap that melon and let the fruit drip. It just means it's the middle of summer. :)

ETA: I paid 5. 79 for a watermelon today at Publix. I remember when they were 50 cents.