This has been a culinary morning. First we went out and bought ducks for roasting on Christmas, then we bought pancetta to make this lovely pasta dish for brunch. The inspiration for it came from my new cookbook by Nigella Lawson. No, I didn't follow the recipe exactly, but the idea came from the book. I served it with broiled tomatoes (a tribute to Nigella, since she's English) and papayas, since I'm going to Hawaii in a few weeks. We have a great bottle of wine that would have gone well with it, but since it was only 10:30 am, we decided maybe that was a bit decadent.

Now, we're off to the Asian food store to find the right turnips to roast with the duck. Wish us luck.

A Spittin’ Contest

Today in our new and improved world we have such things as seedless watermelons. Now, no one can argue that they aren’t easier to eat. But I would say that some of the fun has gone out of them. As an adult, I can appreciate the contrast shiny black seeds make to the red flesh and the green and white rind-- removing them definitely takes away from the aesthetic value of the watermelon.

But the real problem involves spitting. You just can’t spit the sad little seeds that are left, mere shadows of the great shiny black ones.

Old fashion watermelons, complete with seeds, takes me back to a long ago very hot Fourth of July evening. After the usual fireworks (sparklers, fountains and Whistling Petes) and ice cream, we got down to business and watermelons. We spit those little seeds as far as we could, my brother, my cousins and I. We got some pretty good distance too. Those were the days.

The next summer, my grandfather’s rose garden got a nice crop of watermelons.