photo by still burning via flickr

Inspired by summer’s sweetest fruit, I’ve come up with a quick list of delicious (and unexpected!) things you can do with watermelon.  I’m thinking, beyond the traditional fruit salad and watermelon carving.  Mmm, I think I’ll pick one up at my local farmer’s market.  

What Can You Do With Your Watermelon?

1.  Salt It.  I hadn’t seen this before, but some people like to add a hefty dose of salt to tease out the juiciness of their watermelon.

2.  Swill It.  Try a watermelon mojito, a cool twist on this warm-weather classic (or every-weather if you’re anything like me).  For the margarita lovers out there (here, here!), try the Watermelon Basil Margarita.  Salted rim entirely NOT optional.

3.  Cook It.  Poonam over at Cooking Adventures got creative and made a “burger” patty out of her leftover watermelon rind.  Talk bout innovation!  Serve these patties with a side of fresh melon juice.

4.  Greek It.  Watermelon always makes a nice addition to salad– best with feta cheese.

5.  Wear It.  Okay, I don’t actually recommend this, but these pictures were just too weird to pass up.

This Fourth of July, I decided to honor our nation by tackling a hefty physical challenge: riding my bike from Boston to Cape Cod.  Two friends and I packed up our bikes with clothes, camping gear, fuel (aka trail mix), and various other necessities.  Last Friday morning, we set off on the Claire Saltonstall Bike Trail.  The CSBT runs from Boston to Provincetown, over 140 miles.  Sometimes you’re on quiet back roads, sometimes you’re neck and neck with zooming traffic.  There are killer hills and awesome straightaways.  Basically, it’s whatever the ol’ trail decides to throw at you.

We spent the first day biking from my house in Brookline to a friend’s father’s beach in Sagamore/Sandwich (the part before the Sagamore Bridge).  We went through Dorchester, Mattapan, Quincy, Hanover, Duxbury, Tinkertown, Kingston, Plymouth… an endless assortment of Massachusetts towns that all blend into one another after spending that much time on a bike.  That was a good 68-70 in one day, mind you.  Plus, we ended the day clustered in a tent on the beach.  Not exactly luxurious, but there is no other sound I’d rather fall asleep to than the rolling ocean waves.

Day Two took us across the Bridge and up to Brewster, where my aunt and uncle graciously took in the two remaining travelers (we lost one along the way… he’d had enough adventure after Day One), fed us, let us use the hot tub, and gave us deliriously comfortable beds to sleep in.  The last day was a 40-mile race to the tip of the Cape, right up to Herring Beach in Provincetown.  A victory lap around the rotary and we were done!

Why put myself through this, you might ask?  Especially when we launched into this with absolutely no training and/or concrete plan?  Because it was an adventure.  The very same philosophy I use with food applies to my entire life in general: you have to try it once.  I think it goes back to my mother’s “no thank you” helpings.  At dinner, if we were ever served something new or something we didn’t think we’d like, we’d have to take a small, “no thank you” portion, just to try it.  And so, this bike trip was my “no thank you” helping of long-haul adventures.  And, come to find out (much like with eggplant and brussel sprouts), I loved it.  Sure, I was s.o.r.e.  SORE.  But in the end, swollen knees and gridlocked quads can’t outweigh seeing stretches of ocean and forest from the seat of your bicycle.  It took a lot of motivation, but we made it (well, two out of the original three).  

I think a lot of our “making it” had to do with food motivation: bagels in Hanover, lobster rolls in Yarmouth, ice cream in Orleans, fresh fish in Provincetown.  One thing that kept me going, however, was good ol’ fashioned Trail Mix.

The (Un)Official CSBT Trail Mix:

1 cup almonds

1 cup cashews

1/2 cup peanuts

1 cup walnuts

1 cup raisins

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup peanut butter chips

1/2 cup chocolate-covered pretzel bits

1/2 dark chocolate covered coffee beans

Mix it all together, and hit those trails!

This gorgeous specimen is the newest addition to my kitchen.  I love basil.  Italian basil, thai basil, purple basil; any kind of basil adds such flavor and freshness to a dish.  I usually enjoy making Tomato and Mozzarella Toasts or chopping up some fresh basil and adding it to some rice cooked-with-chicken-stockand parmesan cheese.  Many people believe that the use of basil is strictly an Italian invention, but au contraire!  It is an incredibly versatile plant, and I’ve been known to add it not only to curry but to burritos as well.  Once, I even stumbled upon a dessert recipe for basil: Basil-Blackberry Compote.  I can’t wait to try that one.

Tomorrow, after a quick trip to pick up some dough, I’ll be making Fresh Tomato Pesto Pizza.  I figure it’s the perfect end-of-the-day, eat-on-the-back-porch type of meal to have on a Wednesday.  Mmmmm.

Fresh Tomato Pesto Pizza

happy cooking!

I can’t take this rain.  And it’s not even rain; more like a perpetual mist that seeps through every pore and fiber, dampening clothing and temperament alike.  Everything in Boston is absolutely and utterly soggy.  The air is thick and drenched.  Summer hues peep out beneath long, dark raincoats.  Faces are permanently shaded by nylon umbrellas.  I think you’re getting the idea.  This cannot possibly be June.

For me, rain breeds complacency.  I don’t want to do anything.  I don’t want to go out on my bike, and thus must muster every ounce of will to go out at all; I don’t want to cook, because my body goes into hibernation and craves nothing but bread and chocolate.  Add to this my most recent Trader Joe’s discovery:

It’s called “Chocotal” and it is an assortment of four delectably exotic and rich chocolate ice creams.  Of course, I saved the Costa Rican Chocolate one for last.   Wasn’t quite ready to see it go…  Still, hello, heaven, I always knew you’d be in chocolate form.

Anyway, like a mourning shawl lifted from the hunched shoulders of an ancient babushka, today was the first sunny day in what seems like an eternity.  I actually felt the warmth and heat of the sun!  Such a blasphemy that we need to feel this way at the end of June!  But, it was glorious, nonetheless.  And so, I immediately hopped on my bike and rode out to my local Trader Joe’s for some red wine and cherries.

Yeah, those are pits.  I got a little hungry during the shoot.  Cherries, to me, represent the jubilant calling of summer.  Their tartness, sweetness, juiciness, and vividness epitomize the food of this season.  There is just about nothing better than biting into a chilled, plump cherry after a long day out in the sun.  So, should the sun decide to tough it out for me, I’ll be making this Cranberry Cherry Relish to spoon over some grilled chicken sausage.

Well, I’m finally back from quite simply the most incredible week of my life.  I was in Playa Dominical, Costa Rica, surfing at the Green Iguana Surf Camp with some of the most talented, kind, and entertaining people I have ever had the pleasure to meet.  I surfed every day, I tanned on gorgeous beaches, I zip-lined through the rainforest canopy, I salsa/merengued and got turned about the dance floor by various Ticos, I jumped into a waterfall off a rope swing, I rode a motorcycle at 2 am, and I went for a midnight swim with all my clothes on.  I am bruised, scraped up, hungry, tired, and deliriously happy.

I can’t wait to go back.

Of course, part of the fun of this trip was the food.  As I’ve mentioned before, Costa Rica isn’t particularly known for being a culinary destination.  However, the food here was definitely something worth mentioning.  The key being: fresh ingredients.  Absolutely everything was fresh.  We drank amazing Costa Rican coffee and had fresh fruit smoothies (con agua) ever day.  I ate alfajores, arroz con pollo, arroz y frijoles, casado tico, chicken soup, and lots of avocado.  One of my favorite meals was actually my first meal in Dominical: a fried fish dish with papas fritas, salad, and a banana smoothie.  As frightening as the fish looked (note: deep-fried fish eyes staring up at you while you eat does not always make for the most comfortable dining), it was incredible.  So fresh, so crispy, so right.

Mmmm.  Unfortunately, this was the only shot of food that I took while on my trip.  I was far too busy with surfing and hanging out with my friends/surf instructors to be hampered down by a camera (plus, bikinis don’t have pockets).  When I return to Dominical (mind you, that’s a when not an if), I’ll be sure to take many many more.  Pura Vida and, as always, happy eating!

It’s been a little quiet around here, lately, and I apologize for that.  This past week has been crazy between packing for my trip to Costa Rica, helping organize a bar night fundraiser for my team’s 3-day Walk for Breast Cancer (please donate here if you’re so inclined), and celebrating my impending doom entry into spinsterhood 25th birthday.  I kid, I kid.  I’m very excited to be turning a quarter-century old.  I’ve learned a lot in the past two-and-a-half decades, even more in the past 2 years, alone.  I feel 25.  I embrace 25.  I’m ready to be 25.

Am I where I thought I’d be in life at this age?  Heck, no!  And I couldn’t be happier for it.

Anyway, I wanted to give a blog shout-out to A.J. Rathbun, but this time for Amazon.com’s Al Dente blog.  AJ is a kitchen buyer at Amazon and contributes to their fabulous kitchenware/cooking blog.  He was so kind as to give my blog a shout-out on there, and linked to that gorgeous Kirsten Lepore film I’ve talked about.  Check it out!

All right, I’m off to get fabulous and drink wine and eat Italian food at Pomodoro with some of my closest friends.  Ciao bellos!

photo of Marconi Beach by Michael McDonough via flickr.com

Headed out to the cape for the weekend.  Stuffed quahogs, lobster tails, and homemade ice cream abounds!  See you all on Monday!

Sweet Dreams from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

Truly fanciful and mesmerizing animation.  Reminds me of the movies I used to watch as a kid.  Enjoy!

Are you a curry newbie and can’t seem to remember how to distinguish between green, yellow, and panang?  Check out All The Curry, a site developed one night by friends Brendan and Justin.  The website is a one-trick pony, but does so engagingly well.  With a striking graphic of 5 different curries (green, massaman, red, yellow, and panang), you can scroll over each for an explanation and evaluation of flavor.  Mmmm… those tubs of curry are giving me a craving.

Also, I recently joined the world of Twitter for the food-blogging gig.  You can follow me at @keynotesbecca, if you’re Twitter savvy.  Which leads me to my next thought, this: Twitter on Paper.  Ingenious.  And very tongue-in-cheek if you think about it.  The creator of the site, which launched yesterday, will literally take your chosen tweet, write it down in some artful manner, and mail it to you.  For free.  For the cost of exactly nothing, he will make you a beautifully designed paper version of your tweet.  I’m entirely entertained by this idea!  I think it’s endearing and a totally welcome harbinger of the whole technology-backlash I envision taking place sometime soon.  But more on that later… I need to eat.