It's high summer in Northern California, and the abundance of produce is mind-boggling. A couple of weeks ago, it felt like I was drowning in apricots; I'd eaten so many already, and given bags of them away, but everywhere I turned, it seemed someone offered me more. An entire box of Frog Hollow jewels showed up on my front porch, and I took up a bag through my kitchen window one day, locally grown in the sunshine across the street. I shamefully ignored emails offering me ten pounds more. Eventually, the apricots begat so many fruit flies, I pureed the rest for a disappointingly unimaginative sorbet (It tastes just like baby food, everyone I fed it to declared, and it did. Oh well.) and froze the rest. I have bags of home-dried apricots now, and I'm going to have to make a special date to eat them, mid-winter, when finally, the barrage of fresh fruit is over.
At the farmer's markets lately, I have to hold back from buying too much fruit, fearing a barrage of more fruit flies. There are at least a dozen different types of melons for sale, and the fragrant ones I can't resist preclude the purchase of strawberries, peaches, or the delicate raspberries from Lucero Farms that I've been eyeing for what feels like months now, their bursts of dense winey flavor passed over once again. To avoid taking any home with me, I ask Carl, my favorite peach man, for two in a row, "Ready to eat now, please," take a few drippy bites, free the pit, then shove the rest in my mouth, savoring the sweet, unable to talk. Who needs expensive restaurant meals when you can have a simple piece of exquisite fruit? And the atmosphere couldn't be better, save for lying on my back in the grass under the fruit tree itself. I sit there in a coveted patch of shade under the trees, in the middle of Shattuck Avenue, surrounded by friends. It's the closest thing I have to a modern-day town square, the Berkeley farmer's market, and all who shop there eat like kings. We nod and smile knowingly at the shoppers around us, each one of us in on the secret. Talk about quality of life; to me, it's these sorts of simple pleasures that add up to make it high.
After the peaches, I savor a nectarine, and I wish my mother was next to me eating one of her own. She used to buy nectarines in the dead of winter, in New Jersey, in the Eighties, and though her kitchen would look naked without a bowl of nectarines on the shiny white table, I still don't think she's had a nectarine this good. At last Saturday night's party, I ate the most luscious white one standing over a kitchen sink. It wasn't organic, I admit, which I declared a shame, but it was entirely shocking, that piece of fruit, its honeyed perfume waking up every cell in my body when I was so sleepy at three in the morning. Some people remember restaurant meals, but I remember perfect fruit.
So I didn't bring home any peaches. Or anything other than a simple red watermelon, which I'll swiftly turn into my new favorite addiction. Next week, I'll bring home some little red berries, but for now, it's all about melon.
Watermelon Agua Fresca, Sorbet, or Slush
This is already a cinch to make, since it's little more than fruit, but certainly, if you see one, buy a watermelon that's free of seeds; it'll make the task a whole lot easier. I prefer red melon for this--seriously, is there a prettier color?-- but yellow would work too, or any other melon, come to think of it.
Making this into a slushy frozen treat is my new favorite thing. It's especially good to help cool you down on a sweltering afternoon, but really it's good any time of summer, whether chilled for a refreshing drink, or frozen into slush or sorbet. The acidity of the lime and the flowery aroma of the orange blossom water combine with the melon to make something really special. Enjoy!
red watermelon
fresh limes, juiced (use 1 or more 1 per quart of juice)
orange blossom water (about 1 or 2 teaspoons per quart of juice)
agave syrup or sugar to taste
First, wash the melon. Then, cut a thin slice from both ends. Stand the melon up on one of its flattened ends on a cutting board (I use this one, and love its lipped edges, which contain the juices of tomatoes, melon, and citrus, making for easy clean up). Using a sharp, thin-bladed knife, slice off the skin in strips from top to bottom. Rotate the melon (or the cutting board) until all skin has been removed. Cut the flesh into big chunks, and remove the seeds if there are any. The white seeds are fine to leave in there, but the black ones need to go.
Put the chunks of melon flesh in a blender and process for a while until it is uniformly blended and pretty much completely liquified. If you want, you can strain out any small pieces that your blender just won't eat up. Pour the liquid into a big glass jar or pitcher. Add a bit of fresh lime juice and orange blossom water, and stir well. taste it and if it's not sweet enough to you, add a few squirts of agave syrup, or add a bit of sugar and stir until it's dissolved. Taste the mixture and add more of these things to taste if you'd like.
You can serve the juice as is, like a traditional agua fresca. Make sure to chill it well, which will take at least an hour if not longer, or serve it over ice. Or you can chill it and churn it in an ice cream maker until the consistency pleases you. My favorite thing to do is churn it just until it's slushy and enjoy it that way--pure summertime heaven! If you do freeze it in an ice cream maker, but don't eat it all up right away and stick it in your freezer, it will likely get extremely hard in there. You can defrost it by leaving it in the fridge for 30 or 40 minutes. It will then be more scoopable, if not a little slushy, which is not a bad thing at all.
Yield: Depends on how big your melon is. One pound of melon usually equals in the vicinity of 2 cups of flesh, which in turn yields slightly less liquid once blended.
