Saturday, July 21, 2007

A Good Day for Melons

Isn't this beautiful?



I picked up this little watermelon at the Tower Grove Farmer's Market, along with these items:



There's a cantaloupe, the melon, some slicers, an heirloom tomato, grape tomatoes, mocha meringues, and a mocha macaroon. I also included the squash that my co-worker gave me.

The cantaloupe was deliciously fragrant and tasty! I sliced it up along with the melon. I think the cantaloupe is honey rock, but I can't remember. The vendor had samples out, including a sample of ambrosia cantaloupe. YUM YUM YUM! They had already sold out of that variety, so I will try to get to the market at opening next week. But the melon...oh the melon. When I cut into it, I heard exactly what you want to hear....the melon ripping open on its own accord. I could have eaten the whole melon, but I'm saving some for Porkchop.

Growing up in the Bootheel proper, I've eaten A LOT of watermelons. Up until I was nine, we lived adjacent to a watermelon field and would frequently pick our own melons (the farmer was okay with this, we weren't stealing melons). I even remember the first time I had a yellow meat melon. My mom and I were driving to Jonesboro, AR, and we stopped off along the St. Francis River bridge, where a truck was selling red and yellow melons. The yellow melon I bought today definitely rivals those I ate growing up. You see, I'm a bit of a melon snob and (used) to believe that you couldn't get a good melon anywhere north of Sikeston.

Anyway...enough about melons.

While Porkchop and her niece go to Six Flags tomorrow, I'm going to look at houses in University City with one of my co-workers. I love looking at houses, so I'm pretty excited.

Porkchop is having quite the family weekend it seems. Her mom stayed the night with us last night while Porkchop's dad was in the hospital. He had been experiencing severe chest pains for the past couple of months...turns out he had two blockages and hardly any blood flow to a portion of his heart! One blockage was right by the stent inserted in February. The doctors inserted two more stents and don't seem to know what the deal is. Before the heart catheterization, the doctors were skeptical that anything was wrong beause his stress test showed no problems. Porkchop's dad had to press really really hard for the heart catheterization - the doctors didn't want to do it - WTF?? It's fortunate that he didn't have a heart attack.

SLU hospital kind of sucks.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mmmmmmmm! I love yellow watermelon! We got one at Tower Grove last summer and it was divine.

Good luck to Porkchop's dad.

Caro said...

Well, you've got me back for 'sponge bag', I had to check the link for 'bootheel'. Actually rather interesting - I guess I tend to think of the States as pretty homogenised (complete lack of knowledge on my part).
Enjoy your lovely fruit and best wishes for Porkchop's Dad.

Carrie said...

Yeah, the US definitely presents a homogeneous image, but we are SO very different. Even here in St. Louis, in the state where I grew up, I don't find many people who can relate to my childhood experiences that are full of watermelons, cotton, and soybeans.

The fruit is terrific, and hopefully Porkchop's dad won't need to visit a hospital again for a long time.