I discovered a neat way to serve watermelon from my cousin Josie. These handled watermelon spears are easy to prepare and make for mess-free meloning!

Start by picking out the sweetest watermelons at the market. This can be a bit tricky because they don’t ripen after picking, but I’ve found that your senses can help you choose the best from the bunch.

Look

• Watermelons have a light yellow/cream-colored spot somewhere on the bottom where it rested as it grew on the soil. Some people call this the “ripe spot.” If this is greenish or white, this means the fruit isn’t quite ripe yet.
• Look for a spherical watermelon as much as possible. I read somewhere that the rounder the fruit, the higher the pulp-to-skin ratio. This is somewhat mathematical, so I’ll just take the magazine article’s word for it. Haha.
• Blemishes = bad. Choose a watermelon that has no dents, cuts or bruises.

Touch

• The rind should feel firm to the touch, not soft.

Listen

• This is one’s my dad’s trick, and I trust him because he could grow pencils if he just stuck one in a pot. Tap the fruit lightly and expect it to sound hollow. This means it’s full and heavy. (My dad does this to his stomach too, after a full meal, to demonstrate the similarities between a happy tummy and a ripe watermelon! Heehee.)

And now on to the fruit carving! By the way, these work well with small- to medium-sized melons, as the gigantic ones might break.

Bisect your watermelon, and proceed to cut into slivers.

Cut the slivers into wedges. For each wedge, make an L-shaped incision on the bottom right to cut a portion of the rind away.

Do the same for the left. You should have an arrow-shaped piece of watermelon with a bit of rind left at the bottom for holding.

Handy, eh?

I hope you find this useful as summer comes. Portable and beach-perfect food!