A coupla nice melons

I know, I know, another boob joke. I just enjoy them, is all. In fact, I wasn't going to photograph this pair (!) 'til I thought of the boob-joke possibility. But the real story here is that the gal on the left is a canteloupe - a green-fleshed canteloupe. I know from honeydews, and this is definitely a canteloupe, even though I've never seen anything like it. But this internet website says they exist. I haven't yet sorted out exactly what type of magical powers they are supposed to have, but it really explains a lot about my day to know that I've been carrying around an enchanted fruit.

Today I got up earrrrrly and went to the greenmarket before work, because I was out of town at our yearly distribution summit on Saturday. The Monday market is always fun, but toting fifteen-or-so pounds of vegetables on my shoulders twenty-five blocks isn't so much. And the melons added lots of weight.

My weird walk home from the train, laden as I was, was undoubtedly due to the mysterious influence of the green canteloupe. First, I saw a beefy young fellow wearing a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo shirt. Note to my parents: if this is the private investigator you hired to follow me around and make sure I'm not partying all the time, you might want to try someone else. A block later, I saw a fellow who looked and was dressed exactly like Howard Jones. Later, a guy with an extremely round head wearing a Pavement t-shirt that had the New York skyline on it smiled at me.

At any rate, I'm hoping that green canteloupe will cast a goodluck charm on my project for tomorrow - canning part two: dilly beans!

Who needs money when you've got fresh fruit?

It was an overcast morning; I am in madcap desperation to eke the remaining joy out of summer; hence today's wild fruit spending spree.

Oh, the aching joy of shoulders:
1 pt. strawberries
1 box blackberries
1 box raspberries
3 lbs. white peaches
1.5 lbs. yellow peaches
2 lbs. nectarines
1 little watermelon
4 heirloom tomatoes
1 pt. sungold tomatoes
1 lb. spinach
1 bunch kale
4 big zucchini
1 head celery
1 bunch carrots
5 ears corn
Total spent: $55

Last week's seemingly-successful peach-freezing experiment means I'm going to try to repeat it until peaches are gone and I have a month or so worth of frozen lovelies for my smoothies. I'll be freezing most of the white Terhune Orchards peaches; the other peaches, nectarines, and berries are all going toward satisfying my apparently-endless appetite for fresh fruit.

Reading over answers to this Serious Eats thread, I realized that I couldn't think of a fruit I like that I wouldn't love to eat every day for the rest of my life, except maybe bananas. I can't imagine an occasion when the answer to "does a perfectly ripe peach sound good right now?" would be "no." Even - or perhaps especially - after eating a peach, the idea of eating a peach always seems like a great, irresistible idea. The same goes for berries, ripe melons, or citrus.

We're all friends here, so why lie? - sometimes I have eaten so many delicious seasonal fruits that I have suffered gastrointestinal distress. Logic and moderation fail me at times like these. Last week's fruit was all gone by Wednesday, and while I'd like to imagine this massive haul will last longer, I have no reason to think s6 - this week's strawberries are so delicious that I doubt they'll be around much longer.

Otherwise, it was a pretty standard day at USG. Apples are taking up more real estate than last week; soon they'll be abundant. The only new vegetable I'd like to try are some of the fresh beans, but I want to know how to use them before buying, as there are several varieties I'm not familiar with. If fresh lima and cranberry beans are still around next week, I'll pick up some of both. Green beans are waning, and shell peas are finally completely gone.

The spinach this year has been less bountiful, but quite delicious - the leaves are very tender at this point in the season, and the flavor is delicate and fresh. I bought kale as well, because it's one of the only cruciferous vegetables my photo assistant will eat, and we need to get some of those every week, I think. Swiss chard may be tastier and packed with nutrition, but since broccoli is unacceptable around here, I'll have to choose kale, bok choy, and tatsoi more often than my dear chard.

No photos this morning because we have a band staying with us and there are too many boys in sleeping bags on my floor to set up a shoot, but later I'll try to get a photo of my cute watermelon once I open it up, as well as the entwined love carrots I found in my bunch last week. [UPDATE: Just found the watermelon photo on my camera and added it later to this post.]