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Meet a Nearly 28-Pound Fruit with Powerlifting Possibilities
Last week I wrote about my tradition of getting huge watermelons delivered to our home by farmer-friend Tracey Vowell of Three Sisters Garden in Kankakee, Illinois. I received my first of the year a week ago, and it clocked in at a bit more than 18 pounds — impressive but not the biggest that Tracey has sent.
Today, I arrived home from an early morning visit to Chicago's Green City Market in Lincoln Park, and there on the dropoff table in the lobby was this magnificent beast. Behold the glory of a 27.6-pound watermelon, a new personal best in the summer fruit Olympics.
After I received the admiration from the fellow working the desk, I took a deep breath, bent my knees, and power-lifted the watermelon, cradling it in my two arms because it was too big to carry like a loaf of bread (or a football).
My kitchen scale is much too small for such an item, so here's the process for weighing it:
I got out the bathroom scale and stripped down to do my own daily weigh-in.
I then hefted the watermelon, got back on the scale and got the combined weight.
Finally, I subtracted my own weight from the combined weight.
No photographs were allowed. I can only hope that no one has secretly installed a spy camera in my bathroom and has a recording of this spectacle.
We actually have gotten through almost all of last week's 18-pounder, eating it by itself or in watermelon-feta salads; we're down to one container that I'm confident we'll polish off today. But this one... we're going to need some help. Hello, neighbor, would you like some delicious watermelon?
Here's one more look at the mega-melon, flanked by 12 ears of Tracey's amazing sweet corn.
This kind of goes without saying, but the Saturday Green City Market is super-popular, and if you want to beat the crowds, get there around the 7 a.m. opening time.
And here's my market haul: Sekai Ichi tomatoes (a variety developed in China) from Froggy Meadow Farm (Beloit, Wisconsin); Sungold cherry tomatoes from Tomato Mountain (Brooklyn, Wisconsin); Honeycrisp apples, Cherry Cox apples and pears from Nichols Farm and Orchard (Marengo, Illinois); eggplant from Smits Farms (Chicago Heights, Illinois); and English muffins, to which Barb and I have become addicted, from Dorothy's Bakery (Chicago).
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