Watermelon

Watermelon has moved from the backyard picnic and into the dining room. And not just the juicy red variety. There's yellow, too. You won't notice much difference in taste between them, but together they provide a great visual in refreshing salads dotting local late-summer menus. At Audrey Claire near Rittenhouse Square, chef de cuisine Greg Garbacz tops watermelon chunks with crumbled Grana Padano cheese, thin-sliced red onion, and fresh mint. At Twenty21 in Commerce Square, sous chef Colin Leary has offered watermelon salad on his $24 lunch prix-fixe: dice-size cubes of melon and fried, panko-crusted puffs of goat cheese in a sweet sauce including shallots, mint and lavender, all on an oversize lettuce leaf.

Miami linebacker Junior Seau insists he meant no harm when he suggested the way to stop former teammate LaDainian Tomlinson is to feed him fried chicken and watermelon. Tomlinson, whose Chargers face the Dolphins on Monday night, said he was not angered by the comments. Asked yesterday how to limit Tomlinson, San Diego's star running back, Seau told reporters: "You give him watermelon and load him up with fried chicken and tell him to keep eating. " Seau, who is of Samoan descent, later said he and Tomlinson, who is black, are friends and the comment was meant in jest.

MAYBE IT ran on the obit page, and I missed it. But a notable death has occurred, unrecorded. The venerable watermelon - the one with seeds - has died, of entirely unnatural causes. It was at least 5,000 years old, and lived, well, fondly in our memories. For a long time, watermelon as we have known and loved it has been an endangered species. Everywhere you look, whether in state-of-the-art supermarkets or those quaint "farm stands" whose fruit often comes out of the same crates from the same California conglomerates, all you see is the newfangled "seedless" variety.

I peeled away the T-shirt stuck to the small of my back and mopped the sweat from my forehead as I entered the canteen of our neighborhood swim club. The sun showed no early-morning mercy to those of us watching our children compete in a meet. The canteen offered shade and the sustenance I needed to quiet the growling in my stomach to at least a purr. Joining the club in our suburban town had been good for us. Our children had become proficient, competitive swimmers and had met new friends.

I have a novel idea: Let us all call one another by our rightful names without resorting to the use of colorful, and often offensive, characterizations. I'm certainly not in favor of official speech codes or suppression of language. Rather, I'm hoping that each of us will agree to attempt to control our use of careless language, especially in the workplace. One man's metaphor can be another's intimidation. As every big-city mayor learns, loose language can be as costly as it is dangerous.

If you have already tasted the sublime seviche of watermelon and scallops at the new Mexican restaurant called Xochitl, then you might understand Steven Cook's reaction last year to a tasting meal at Dionicio Jimenez's home: "I wanted to be in the Dionicio business. " Some people might have hesitated to invest in a 33-year-old with no head-chef experience who arrived in Philadelphia from Mexico nine years ago with no money to his name (though two brothers generously spotted him a starter loan)

Testing his prowess at watermelon-seed spitting, David Murphy tries to land one the farthest during a contest at the Delaware County 4-H Fair in Newtown Square. The annual event also featured a livestock auction and vegetable contest.

The Scales brothers, Charlie and Henry (right), make friends with a curious sheep at the Delaware County 4-H Fair. The annual event featured such staples as a livestock auction and vegetable contest, as well as new competitions for watermelon-seed spitting and stinky shoes. Held on the grounds of the Garrett Williamson Foundation in Newtown Square, it is the only agricultural fair in Delaware County.

What's your best buy in fruit, nutritionally speaking? Melons offer relatively more vitamins for fewer calories than any other fruit - even that old "diet fruit," grapefruit. What's unique about cantaloupe - in addition to its ultra-low-calorie count, only 41 per quarter - is its double-whammy of vitamins A and C. Where grapefruit or orange juice with breakfast provides mainly vitamin C, you get both C and A from a slice of melon, and save on the calories besides. Melons are versatile and can be enjoyed all year - fresh from the freezer.

Miami Dolphins linebacker Junior Seau insists he meant no harm when he suggested the way to stop former teammate LaDainian Tomlinson is to feed him fried chicken and watermelon. Asked how to limit the San Diego running back, Seau told reporters, "You give him watermelon and load him up with fried chicken and tell him to keep eating. " The Dolphins meet the Chargers, Seau's former team, on Monday night. Seau, who is of Samoan descent, later said he and Tomlinson, who is black, are friends and the comment was meant in jest.

Growing up in Texas, I remember tasting watermelon that was so sweet that we'd sprinkle salt on the oversize, half-moon slices to balance the flavors. Eating the cartoony wedges was always an adventure - the watermelon itself was no match for the flimsy white paper plates - and the seeds . . . what were we supposed to do if not spit them at each other? Let's face it, watermelon's just fun. Its striped outside and bright pink, black polka-dotted middle give it a visual appeal like no other fruit, and the taste - such sweet goodness!

In Bensalem, the soaring cost of food means that grilled cheese will be harder to find in the school lunch line. In Washington Township, it translates to iceberg lettuce instead of pricier romaine, and more applications for free and reduced-price lunches. And in Coatesville, it may mean fewer kaiser rolls and more white bread. Across the region and the country, higher food prices are raising school lunch prices and squeezing some variety out of what the government sells to districts.

Not that you need an excuse to eat more watermelon, but it does have 40 percent more of the antioxidant lycopene than tomatoes. Plus, according to the USDA, watermelon is fat-free and a good source of vitamins A, B6, C and thiamin. But picking a ripe melon can be tricky. If only you could taste it before buying. "I love watermelon, and I taste away when I'm shopping for it," says Jimmy Iovine of Iovine Brothers Produce in the Reading Terminal Market. He's been selling watermelons from Florida and Georgia lately, but the Jersey crop should be in this week, he says.

Shame on Mayor Nutter for using the power of the office that many Obama supporters, like me, gave him - to promote a candidate we oppose. I supported Michael Nutter, voted for him and encouraged my friends and neighbors to vote for him as a reform candidate. Now I see him leading a "payback campaign" for a candidate I view as a representing the status quo in politics. I put Mayor Nutter in office with my vote, not the Clintons. Kay Welch Mosby, Philadelphia Mayor Nutter's comment about fried chicken, watermelon and black people (April 7)

Watermelon has moved from the backyard picnic and into the dining room. And not just the juicy red variety. There's yellow, too. You won't notice much difference in taste between them, but together they provide a great visual in refreshing salads dotting local late-summer menus. At Audrey Claire near Rittenhouse Square, chef de cuisine Greg Garbacz tops watermelon chunks with crumbled Grana Padano cheese, thin-sliced red onion, and fresh mint. At Twenty21 in Commerce Square, sous chef Colin Leary has offered watermelon salad on his $24 lunch prix-fixe: dice-size cubes of melon and fried, panko-crusted puffs of goat cheese in a sweet sauce including shallots, mint and lavender, all on an oversize lettuce leaf.

If you have already tasted the sublime seviche of watermelon and scallops at the new Mexican restaurant called Xochitl, then you might understand Steven Cook's reaction last year to a tasting meal at Dionicio Jimenez's home: "I wanted to be in the Dionicio business. " Some people might have hesitated to invest in a 33-year-old with no head-chef experience who arrived in Philadelphia from Mexico nine years ago with no money to his name (though two brothers generously spotted him a starter loan)

Miami linebacker Junior Seau insists he meant no harm when he suggested the way to stop former teammate LaDainian Tomlinson is to feed him fried chicken and watermelon. Tomlinson, whose Chargers face the Dolphins on Monday night, said he was not angered by the comments. Asked yesterday how to limit Tomlinson, San Diego's star running back, Seau told reporters: "You give him watermelon and load him up with fried chicken and tell him to keep eating. " Seau, who is of Samoan descent, later said he and Tomlinson, who is black, are friends and the comment was meant in jest.

Miami Dolphins linebacker Junior Seau insists he meant no harm when he suggested the way to stop former teammate LaDainian Tomlinson is to feed him fried chicken and watermelon. Asked how to limit the San Diego running back, Seau told reporters, "You give him watermelon and load him up with fried chicken and tell him to keep eating. " The Dolphins meet the Chargers, Seau's former team, on Monday night. Seau, who is of Samoan descent, later said he and Tomlinson, who is black, are friends and the comment was meant in jest.

MAYBE IT ran on the obit page, and I missed it. But a notable death has occurred, unrecorded. The venerable watermelon - the one with seeds - has died, of entirely unnatural causes. It was at least 5,000 years old, and lived, well, fondly in our memories. For a long time, watermelon as we have known and loved it has been an endangered species. Everywhere you look, whether in state-of-the-art supermarkets or those quaint "farm stands" whose fruit often comes out of the same crates from the same California conglomerates, all you see is the newfangled "seedless" variety.

The Scales brothers, Charlie and Henry (right), make friends with a curious sheep at the Delaware County 4-H Fair. The annual event featured such staples as a livestock auction and vegetable contest, as well as new competitions for watermelon-seed spitting and stinky shoes. Held on the grounds of the Garrett Williamson Foundation in Newtown Square, it is the only agricultural fair in Delaware County.