P-tooey! Watermelon would be perfect if not for those pesky seeds.

Luckily, Instructables provides a great tutorial on how to remove most (key word: most) of the seeds from your average watermelon. It's easy and quick, with no fancy tools needed.

Or, if you're feeling ca-razy, you could inject your watermelon with a pre-mixed martini (yes, you'll need a syringe - it's a little creepy, but worth it), let it chill for an hour, and indulge in some alcoholic fruit. Just keep it away from the kids.

I was watching an episode of some Emeril show recently in which Emeril adds chili-infused vodka to his Bloody Mary. I remember thinking that I just HAD to do this, but by the time I turned off the TV, I had forgotten the steps and lost my motivation. This happens frequently, which is why I love the Food Network web site.

I may be primarily re-inspired, however, by a how-to post over at WIRED about vodka infusion. The process described works with number of fruits and vegetables, and I think it would be fun to try a bunch at once and do some taste testing. At any rate, attempts will likely surpass the one made by some friends last spring to infuse vodka into a watermelon (though I've seen it work before, I'll bet the process goes a lot smoother when you infuse the fruit into the drink, and not vice versa).

Anyone have vodka infusion success (or failure) stories to share? Fruits or veggies that work especially well?

I have never understood the fascination that Japan has with molding and shaping fruits and vegetables. I can see how a square watermelon would make slicing and shaping easier, but would never be willing to pay extra for that particular convenience (especially since it has been found that making them grow square negatively effects the sweetness of the melon). Well now, they're taking it one step further, molding melons to look like faces. These things cost a mint and aren't designed for eating, they are supposed to be decorative. It seems to me that buying fruit as decoration isn't a particularly good investment.

Via Serious Eats

I'm not sure if the audience for this weird candy product is would-be cannibals or students of Freudian analysis. More likely it's aimed at the orally fixated who have a sweet tooth, just like all lollipops.

The folks over at Archie McPhee say that as long you don't have any hangups about eating candies shaped like human heads then you'll love the shape and flavor of these Freud head lollipops. The package has a spoof on the famous Freud quote that reads, "Sometimes a lollipop is just a lollipop." For some reason these things remind me of another famous quote: "There's a sucker born every minute."

[via: Boing Boing]

Here's some interesting news from a study conducted at Purdue University: eating liquid foods might make you eat more calories during the day, because our bodies register the calories a lot slower.

The tests were done on 120 men and women. On day one they were given a test lunch of a chicken sandwich and water, and were allowed to eat any meal they wanted later in the day. On the other days, a liquid or solid food was given along with the chicken sandwich (milk or cheese, coconut or coconut milk, and watermelon or watermelon juice). They could have as many sandwiches as they wanted after eating the samples and then recorded how full they were. This is all confusing to me, but I wonder if this is one of the reasons why people on liquid diets and diets that have liquid meal replacement options often gain weight later.

Though I wonder how accurate it is, since it was only a three day study. I'd like something with a little more depth, but it's an interesting start.

You know what we need more of in this world? Food on shirts. I don't mean the logos of food companies, I mean actual food. Hamburgers, popsicles, plates of macaroni and cheese, glasses of wine, whatever. LiquidBlue.com has some pretty wild designs at their site. You can get a giant slice of lime on a cool blue shirt. There's a shirt with an ear of corn around the neck. Or how about a grill filled with steak, shrimp, and hot dogs, since it is summer?

I like the watermelon shirt, since the design actual lends itself to a shirt, with the V-neck shape. Plus I love watermelon.

Spending the long weekend in the garden? More than likely, you've already got it going with fruits and vegetables for harvest later this summer, but if you have any room left in that little plot, you might want to plant these awesome melons - Moon and Stars.

The melons aren't green like the regular watermleons we're used to seeing. The medium-sized oval fruits are darker green and covered with pea-sized bright yellow "stars" and usually one "moon" (hence, the name). The inside of the melon looks like regular watermleons wiht pink flesh and brown seeds.

The seeds to grow these beauties are available from Seed Savers Exchange.

Our friends down under in Australia are enjoying some lovely summer weather, while many of us are still looking for a way to add another layer to our outfits without looking like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Watermelon is one of the iconic foods of summer and is something that, in addition to shorts and t-shirts, we're all looking forward to enjoying in a few months. And by "enjoying" it, we mean eating it, although not everyone shares our idea of what to do with a watermelon. In Australia this week, a world record for watermelon smashing was set by a melon picker in Queensland, who smashed open 40 watermelons in 60 seconds - with his head.

The watermelon smashing even is just one part of the biannual Water Melon Festival. Other highlights include water(melon) skiing and a largest watermelon contest. You can see a video clip of some of the highlights, including the watermelon speed-smashing, here.

I was in line in the supermarket last night, and the woman behind me told her son, around 10 or 11 years old, that if he wanted he could run to get some ice cream. About 5 minutes later the kid came back.

With frozen eyeballs and green slime.

He picked up Fear Factor Pop Ups, from Popsicle. These little frozen concoctions look like regular Pushups, but they have "extreme" colors and big eyeballs on the top of them. Let's take the copy straight from the web site:

"In sour cherry with an eyeball gumball and sour watermelon, both with the shocking taste of sour lemon slime. Or the slime pop - sour watermelon flavored ice with sour lemon slime." (Do those lines even make sense?)

The mother, needless to say, was not pleased with her son's choice. In fact, I think I heard her say the word "no" about 17 times. The poor kid was heartbroken when she told him to take it back and get something "normal." But he didn't cry, so good for him.

I didn't even know they made food products based on reality shows. I'm not looking forward to Big Brother Cake or Blind Date Juice.

Square watermelons (and even pyramidal ones) have been around in Japan for several years, and now grocery stores in the UK will sell them, according to the Daily Mail. Tesco will start selling the melons in October for less than £5 (approximately $9), far cheaper than the cube-shaped melons usually retail for in Japan. The melons, which are shaped by the clear plastic boxes they're raised in, will be imported from Brazil.

According to USDA scientists, room temperature watermelon deliver more nutrients than refrigerated or freshly picked melons.

Their report, in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, looks specifically at carotenoids, which are antioxidants that can counter sun and chemical damage, as well as damage done from every day living.

Their findings showed that watermelons continue to produce nutrients after they are picked. Chilling slows this process. Additionally, at refrigerated temperatures, like 41 F (5 C), watermelon starts to decay and develop lesions after a week.

BUt if you like to eat your fruit cold, then just ignore this post, and read Nick's.

Now, I'm usually not one to split hairs, but as I read this AP story about this year's crop of watermelons in Georgia, I found the following sentence a little odd: "Watermelons are often viewed as a fruit, but they technically are a vegetable, related to cucumbers, pumpkins and squash." Last I checked, all of those were fruits. I'm no botanist, but I know that watermelons are the seed-bearing parts of the vines that they grow on. Anyone with more knowledge of the plant kingdom care to weigh in? As for this year's Georgia watermelons, they're supposed to be some of the sweetest ones seen in recent years. Apparently all the recent dry heat has something to do with that.

Watermelons hardly constitute solid food, given that they are 92% water. Nevertheless, they are kept intact by their hard, green rind and so make one of the most refreshing, healthy summer treats you can imagine.

Watermelons have more lycopene (an antioxidant) than any other fruit or vegetable, with more than four times the amount per serving than a large tomato. They are free from fat, cholesterol and are very low in calories. Though there is sugar in the melons, it is naturally diluted by the high levels of water in the fruit. Watermelons also have high amounts of vitamins A, B6, C and potassium.

The first recorded watermelons were enjoyed in ancient Egypt, approximately 5,000 years ago. Through trade, watermelons made their way to China, where they became popular rapidly, before firmly establishing themselves in Europe around the thirteenth century. Today, there are 1,200 varieties of watermelon (not counting oddly shaped ones). Some of the most popular include picnic melons, which are oblong and quite large; seedless and miniature/individual, which are growing in popularity. By and large, the fruits are juicy and sweet. Most varieties, and certainly the most popular, have red flesh, though there are types that grow with different colored flesh, such as yellow. China is still the number one producer of watermelons in the world, followed by Turkey, Iran, the US and Egypt.

This is the Domestic Goddess's Watermelon and Feta Salad and if there is a more refreshing side dish on a hot summer day, I'm not sure what it would be. It is also very simple to make; the chilled salad has the crunchy sweetness of watermelon, its juiciness enhanced by mixing it with salty, creamy feta cheese. Jennifer has added chopped parsley to hers for a bit of color contrast, but I have seen recipes, like Nigella Lawson's, that call for adding chopped olives to the mix. Paula Deen's recipe asks for slivered onions to be included. The Traveler's Lunchbox tosses pinenuts and basil in with the watermelon. Whichever combination of flavors you end up using, this is a great use for watermelon and a beautiful, sweet-and-savory side to replace potato salad at your next bbq.

 

 

We have seen pyramidal watermelons before, and we have known that square watermelons have been on the Japanese market for some time. I have never seen one in my local market, but I would definitely not mind getting my hands on one just for the novelty factor. Fortunately, I caught a post that showed how to do it when I was browsing at Boing Boing. It looks like you just put the immature watermelon into a box with a removable side. As it matures, it grows into the shape of the box - just like a bonsai kitten, but much less disturbing.

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