When Dealing with a Whole Watermelon

I’d never thought of a watermelon as a formidable foe before but, as they say, there’s a first time for everything. The truth is that I’d never had to cut one up myself. Even though I grew up eating watermelon in Louisiana, the dirty work had always been done by someone else: namely my mother. Later that job fell to an anonymous entity at my local supermarket, while I spent the summers munching merrily on fat, pink slices that came wrapped in cling film. It’s funny how, once you become an adult, you realize all the simple things you never learned to do, like deboning a chicken or hemming pants.

After a lovely barbeque at the Oinumas’ peaceful countryside home in Kanagawa, they sent us home with a bushel of eggplants, a bag of tomatoes, handfuls of okra, and a surprisingly heavy watermelon – all grown on the fields surrounding their handsome Showa-era estate. Back at my apartment in Tokyo, I contemplated the fruit’s smooth, striped surface as it sat on the kitchen counter. The melon was perfectly round, with a stem curling out of the top like a wayward tuft of hair, and bore a striking resemblance to Oinuma-sensei himself. It looked so vulnerable, and the weight of the cleaver disconcerted me slightly.


Wincing, I plunged the knife into the center, and the melon split open. It happened suddenly, and I hadn’t anticipated the force with which the two halves would break apart. One side rolled off of the counter and landed on the floor with a juicy splat. I shrieked and Misha looked at me accusingly.

“Murderer,” he whispered.

“Misha, please,” I retorted. “It wasn’t my fault.”

He continued following me with his eyes.

I salvaged what I could and scooped the shattered melon flesh into the trash. My attention then turned to the next challenge: the seeds. When celebrity chefs use watermelon in recipes, they always seem to have immaculate, seedless varieties on hand. In nature, however, these don’t really exist. After what seemed like an extraordinarily long time, I managed to remove most of the hard bits, but I began to suspect that organic watermelons actually contained a higher ratio of seed to flesh.

By the time JP returned, I was still picking away at the little black flecks.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I had an accident.”

“What happened?” He raised his eyebrows.

“I dropped half of the watermelon,” I confessed.

“My clean floor!” he wailed, cupping his face with both hands like the boy from Home Alone.

I sighed and continued picking.

Half an hour later, the salad was ready. The combination of sweet watermelon, salty feta cheese, piquant red onion, and lime juice felt supremely refreshing at the end of another miserably hot day. The arugula added a kick of zesty bitterness. This simple salad is a fine match for a light sake like Yuki no Bosha Junmai Ginjo, an easy-drinking brew that offers generous fruit and bright flavors overlaying a structure of firm acidity. Sake Social was kind enough to send me a bottle, along with pairing suggestions by sake samurai Beau Timkin. Beau recommends the Yuki no Bosha with fresh fruit, salads, cheeses and gentle cold pastas. I’ve always found his advice to be spot-on, and this was no exception.


In theory, this meal requires about ten minutes of preparation time. I reckon it took me over an hour, given that I had to clean the mess off the floor. Still, it was well worth the effort and I’ve learned a thing or two – when dealing with a whole watermelon, act swiftly and give it a wide berth.