Can you teach and old dog a new trick?

At girls camp this year, I walked through the dining room and saw a watermelon sitting on the table like this and it really caught my eye (I know... something shiney)... I was probably on my way to the bathroom stall to pray, it seemed to be the only really quiet place I could go pray during the day light hours with girls here and there and everywhere... and I did pray allot at camp (weird place, I know, but a very quiet place). After all, coming from a house of boys, going to a camp full of girls, here, there and everywhere... prayer is a requirement to get through any moment of everyday! I love girls, we are just so different than boys.... and I needed extra help from God to be the best I could be with them and in front of them, to teach them, and be an example at all times and in all things and in all places.

So yeah, the watermelon... it struck me that I had never seen a watermelon in this condition before... no rhine, but not split open either. So I came home and figured it out. There are many different ways to skin a cat... are any of them wrong... I'd say not.

But I am all about finding out secrets in life that make it easier... especially if it means saving time in the kitchen! I like the kitchen, but I hate the feeling that I am trapped in there, stuck! I have had nightmares about being stuck in a kitchen. (another blog for another day).

So the only reason I am posting this is that I thought I was the last one to know how to cut a watermelon this way. But when I was with my Mom, the subject of cutting watermelons came up (for real???) and I was able to share something new with her. Cool! Not an everyday event that I can teach my Mom something new in the kitchen... not even an every century event... so I figured there may be more inquiring minds who just "have" to know about this!

1. First you cut the end off...

2. Then you cut the other end off.. (I am all about symmetry anyway... I don't know how I am just learning about this method)....

3. Then you start at the top and cut along the shape of the melon just inside the rhine, after the first cut you are only going through the rhine with one side of the blade, so it cuts like butter, and you can tell if you go outside the line a little as it will get harder to cut...

4. I was amazed at how close I could get to the edge and not waste any melon...

5. Then you end up with a whole watermelon like this...

From here you can cut it anyway you like to store it...

In slices... if your like me and like to eat a whole plate full of it!

Or in chunks... If you live with someone like my husband and you get "the look" when I come out with a plate over flowing with watermelon... the chunks look like you are more dainty! (one of these days I am going to do like my Mom said she did as a child in Papa's garden and smash it open and just eat the heart out of it and leave the rest with the seeds... he he he, that would really kill him).

Watermelon is one of my very favorite foods... but I always hated the chore of packing it home, cutting it and carrying the dripping rhines out to the garbage and having to time it all around garbage pick up day so they weren't in the garbage can outside too many days in a row in the hot sun attracting flies and bees.

This way is so much easier, and cleaner since the rhines don't have much meat on them to drip or attract bugs and critters.