Sugar and Spice

It used to be (when Carter was little, that is) I'd buy a watermelon and take special care in serving it up as a real summer treat.

And by special care I mean using my little yellow Tupperware melon-baller (I am not sure if that is the correct name) and make tons of little melon "balls" (again on the terminology!) that could be eaten with a toothpick. Carter just thought that was the neatest thing, eating with a toothpick. I, on the other hand, realized it took twice as long to cut up the melon that way than by normal methods a la square chunks.

Now that Carter has more sophisticated ways of being entertained, I just slice and dice so I can bring it to work with me. He is welcome to have some of the boring old squares, of course. And hubby, well, he has other summer fruits of choice – namely raspberries.

Tonight as I was slicing away, I suddenly remembered that we used to sprinkle salt on our watermelon when we were kids. That's what my parents did so that's what we did. I know. It does sound strange. Like why would you ruin a perfectly good piece of summer with salt?

Not sure since I know even less about gardening than I do about cooking!

So I decided to experiment. If you sprinkle a little, it really does bring out the flavor. Seriously! But if you sprinkle more than a little, it tastes like crappy, salty fruit. So if you are trying this at home, know that there is a fine line between just right and too much.

As long as I was thinking about salt on summer fruit, I remembered sugar on summer vegetables. Wait, a tomato is still a vegetable, isn't it? Anyway. Mom (and I know at least one sister) would pour sugar on sliced tomatoes. Even with sugar, I am not a fan of tomatoes at all. Nope, nope, no.

I am guessing it also brings out the flavor – even though I would use it to cover it up – because Jim has noticed that with another vegetable: corn. He found a "secret" recipe online where you add up to a cup of sugar to the water when boiling the cobs. It sure makes the sweet corn taste sweeter! Yum.

And you can still slather on butter, salt AND pepper. Whatever it takes to spice things up!

What do YOU do to bring out the taste of summer? Am I missing any more sugar or salt tricks? They don't have to make sense. They just have to make flavor.