Over the weekend I bought a whopper of a watermelon from a nearby farmer for four bucks. I thought it looked like a cucumber on steroids, as it must have been over twice the size of my melon (head)! The farmer’s son offered to carry it to my car, but I figured a little melon-style weight lifting would be good for me (no, I did not do squats but merely an isometric bicep exercise for a few blocks).

I strapped the melon in the backseat of my car and continued the morning’s shopping. As luck would have it, I found a small set of French knives on the clearance table at Williams-Sonoma and snatched them up as well. I would be embarrassed to show anyone the knife I used on a daily basis for food prep. Let’s just say that I am lucky to have all digits intact.

Left alone with that melon, a cutting board, and my new upgraded tools, I was a happy and well-hydrated sweet chopping fool. I didn’t know how glorious it could be to cut things with proper knives (in infomercial voice, “it was a breeze!”). Juicy red chunks for snacks and smoothies, circle and straw cut-outs to freeze as flavorful ice cubes, and the (often sadly discarded) rind to put in a pie, a strawberry-watermelon rind custard pie. The slight rue on the edges of the pale rind visually reminded me of rhubarb, so I treated it as such, following my grandma’s rhubarb custard pie recipe, using rind in place of rhubarb and adding some chopped strawberries to the mix of watermelon rind, nutmeg, and eggy custard, mmmmm.

Currently finishing the last slice of pie with some cold milk and drying the dark green skin of the watermelon in the 80-degree sun. Soon it will be pulverized to a powder state and used as a colorant in some handmade paper for another small project of mine. Whoppermelon, you obliged me well.