Excalibur 2: Humongous Melon-Mania Returns
Plus this week's regional farmers market schedule
The Sword in the Watermelon, 2023 Edition
Once again I extracted Excalibur, the mighty chef’s knife, from the first ginormous watermelon delivered unto me by my friend Tracey Vowell at Three Sisters Garden in Kankakee, Illinois. All hail the Melon King!
This has become an annual ritual since Tracey transitioned to home delivery in Chicago during the pandemic after years as a beloved vendor at Green City Market. Tracey grows watermelons that are both stupendously delicious and almost impossibly large. And the home delivery enables me to avoid buying watermelons at farmers markets, which even in the much smaller sizes can be pretty heavy to haul.
This beauty weighed in at 21 pounds. As you can see, we don’t have a lot of counter space in our apartment kitchen, which can make processing it pretty challenging, especially since a very juicy fruit has to be mopped up after frequently.
And once cut down, it was a job getting all this into a fridge already packed with seasonal produce. We’re going to be making some neighbor friends happy with some of this. Anything left after a few days will go into the freezer.
Plus don’t forget…
Power-Lifting Large Melons Counts as Exercise
If you’re now curious about ginormous watermelons, click below to visit Three Sisters Garden’s website. They deliver on Wednesdays (orders must be in by midnight Monday) and Saturdays (order by midnight Thursday).
This Week’s Regional Farmers Markets
And of course, please visit our region’s farmers markets this week. How on earth is this the last week in August already! It’s still peak season but don’t dally.