I love a good kitchen hack, and when it’s suggested by none other than Alton Brown, I can’t resist.
When I saw him make watermelon juice without first peeling and dicing the watermelon, I was riveted. We tried it at the cottage last weekend and it totally works. It’s also so much fun. We mixed the watermelon juice with vodka and lime juice and topped it up with some sparkling water.
You can of course cut up watermelon and puree it in the blender. Either way you choose to do it, I suggest pouring the juice through a sieve to remove the lumpy bits. You want a smooth juice.
This week I tinkered with the recipe we created on the weekend. Our watermelon wasn’t that sweet, so I made a simple syrup. I decided to flavour the syrup with basil, since watermelon and basil are a really delicious flavour pairing. The basil takes this cocktail from good to great.
This would be the perfect cocktail to celebrate Canada Day or the 4th of July!
Depending on where you are in your particular family life cycle, hearing the phrase “Family Togetherness” may wrap your heart like a warm hug or may cause you to run screaming from the room.
In my case, the chicks are all grown and have flown the coop. When my progeny all come together under the same roof, I sleep sounder at night. It fills me with joy. However, there was a time when I wanted to run kicking and screaming from their loving and sometimes all encompassing embrace, but that’s a tale most moms can relate to, and there is certainly no need to go into the gory details here.
This past weekend, the stars and planets were aligned just right and we were together as an entire family at the cottage. As we were having dinner on Saturday night, the youngest, wanting to relive the defining moments of his childhood, asked his siblings what were some of their worst memories of growing up. He is a bit of a “glass half-empty” kind of kid. We all laughed and then they were off down memory lane, telling stories about the time(s) mom yelled, or the time blood spurt everywhere when dad cut the youngest with an electric razor during his inaugural shave.
As I listened to my kids tell these tales it struck me that even with all the digital advances we have made with memory keeping, a family’s folklore and history really lives best through good old fashioned story telling. It is the telling and retelling of these anecdotes that connect us as a family. In our family, some of the stories have been told so many times that my kids and their cousins use a shorthand system to refer to them. As in, “Oh come on Uncle Roger, tell us Chapter 18 again.” (Chapter 18 is the tale of how my husband came to shave off his moustache of 31 years, after losing a hockey bet.)
My daughter and I collaborated on Saturday to create this cocktail. One to two of these will be all you’ll need to get the stories flowing. Somehow, the kids and I polished off the entire pitcher while my husband was napping on the hammock, so I am certain that by next summer he will be telling the saga of his hurt feelings when his family neglected him during aperitivo hour.
People lament, all the time, “Oh, I’m in such a rut”. Their gloomy tone implies that it’s a bad thing. But really, if you think about it carefully, being in a routine is not necessarily an unfavourable state.
Take me, for example. Every day, for the past two years I have eaten the exact same lunch of hummus (I am especially fond of the Fontaine Santé brand!), carrots and celery. Sometimes I throw caution to the wind and add some sugar snap peas and cucumbers, and when I’m really feeling wild, I might add a hard boiled egg, but pretty much it’s hummus, carrots and celery every day.
What I have come to realize is that by having my brain on auto-pilot at lunchtime, and not having to think about what to make for lunch, it frees up valuable space in my brain to contemplate other weighty matters. Such as, what to have for dinner or whether or not a two state solution is a viable option for peace in the Middle East. Recently most of my grey matter has been been heavily pre-occupied with how to annihilate the entire population of Deer Flies in Eastern Ontario. Has any body else noticed how fierce they are this year? They don’t just bite, they take a chunk out of you and it hurts!
So my mind was otherwise occupied when my daughter called me at lunchtime one day last month and burbled all excitedly about what she made for lunch that day. Diced watermelon, tomatoes, chopped fresh mint and a little bit of feta cheese crumbled on top. She boasted that it was a fantastic 2 point lunch on Weight Watchers, which we periodically follow. After we exchanged all the news, we said goodbye and as I looked at my sad little plate of carrot and celery sticks and bowl of hummus, I knew it was time for a change.
Lately my local fruit and vegetable store has been carrying these sweet golden tomatoes. Lush, intense and chock full of juice, their sweetness masks the acidity.Summer watermelon has been fantastic the past few weeks. That heavy dense flesh so refreshing and bursting with sweetness.There really is no recipe for this salad. Just slice the tomatoes and watermelon, chop up some fresh mint and sprinkle on some crumbled feta. The contrast of the sweet melon against the tangy tomatoes is intensely satisfying. The salt from the feta and the freshness of the mint add a final grace note that is quite addictive. In the interest of full disclosure here, I must be honest and admit that the above photos do not in any way resemble what my lunchtime salad looks like. I dice up everything in a stainless steel prep bowl and eat it standing over the sink. Just thought you should know!
I love a good kitchen hack, and when it’s suggested by none other than Alton Brown, I can’t resist.
