Kenton and I picked the first watermelon from our garden yesterday, and sat down to enjoy its crisp sweetness. Nothing like eating your own fresh melons! When we sat back, both of us full with the red delight, Kenton suddenly said, “Hey, can’t we make watermelon rind pickles out of this?” He proceeded to tell me of one of his favorite childhood treats — pickled watermelon rind — which I had never tried before. Stepping over to the computer room, we looked up watermelon rind pickles on Google, and came across a site that brought back memories of Forrest Gump talking to his friend the shrimp-catcher. There were recipes for watermelon rind pickles, watermelon rind salad, watermelon rind curry, watermelon rind dosas, watermelon rind sherbert, watermelon rind wine, watermelon rind jelly, tequila soaked watermelon rind . . . and the list went on.
Instead of getting all fancy, though, we just cut up some watermelon rind and plopped it into the hot-sour soup we were making for lunch. The result?
I have to admit, I was skeptical at first, but it was delicious! The rind took on a soft jade color — quite beautiful, and had a subtle, sweet flavor. Its most remarkable property was that it had a pleasant crunch while still being very juicy. (Though I suppose the crunch might be destroyed with too much cooking.)
We’re definitely adding this to our cooking repertoire. It’s going to be especially fun to try it out on friends, who surely won’t recognize the ‘exotic’ fruit we’re using in our stir-fries, soups, and other dishes. If you’ve never tried it, give it a shot! You simply eat the fruit, use a potato peeler to peel the green skin away, and chop it up into whatever size you’d like for your recipe. Of course, if you want to become an aficionado, you can visit www.watermelonrind.com yourself and give some of the other recipes a try =)
Enjoy!
Posted on September 19th, 2009 by Rebecca Whitman
Filed under: Plants | 8 Comments »
Two days ago, while sitting at our computers writing, Rebecca and I heard a sharp retort — almost like a gunshot — issue from our woods. We paused in our typing. A moment later, we heard another one. We looked across at each other. What now?
Swerving around her, we jumped out and Kenton captured her by the tail. She was quite strong, and deciding that she wasn’t ready to leave, tried a few strikes and rattled her tail in Kenton’s hand. (Fox snakes are often mistaken for rattlesnakes and killed — partly because their patterns and coloration bear some small resemblance to a rattlesnake’s, but also because they’ll often attempt to scare away a threat by vibrating their tail. If it vibrates against dry leaves, it can sound almost like a rattlesnake. While a good defense against predators, it means that humans often kill them, mistaking them for a venomous snake). Then, quite to Kenton’s surprise, she musked. (“I didn’t know they musked!”, he exclaimed.) It smelled like an extra-potent version of a garter snake’s smelly defense, but it was a brownish substance instead of the white that characterizes a garter snake’s. 
She was deposited on the side of the road, where she soon sped away into the grass. The rest of our trip was spent exclaiming how beautiful she was, and laughing at how close she had come to latching on to Kenton’s hand or leg. It looks like she’s been around awhile to get that big, and we’re wishing her many more adventures and hopefully many more years of life.
