Kitchen

[Sooner]

I am pretty sure watermelons do not ripen after they are harvested.

The freshest melons will have a green stem on them.  The longer they are picked the more brown and hard the stem becomes and the higher chance the melon will become mushy.

You want one with a yellow belly, not green or white.  Put your hands on both sides of the melon and pat gently with one hand.  On the other hand you will feel the vibrations as they travel through the melon.  If it is too green, it will be hard to feel the vibrations; too ripe and you feel them too much.  Just right and it will be somewhere in the middle.  Pat a few and you'll be able to tell the differences!  

[walkingal]

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@Kachina624 wrote:

Seems like the stores pretty much have them year around nowadays.

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All of the grocery stores in my area have them all year round.  And they're good too.  I just read in a magazine that said there are three places now that grow watermelon all year, and this is why they're so available now.  The three places were either California or Florida, Mexico, and somewhere in South America.  

[LeoGrl]

I love watermelon too!  If you can't wait till your watermelon ripens, you HAVE to try Watermelon water  OMG, it is delicious!  It's just the actual watermelon juice that is cold pressed and only lemon juice is added to it.  I found out about it in one of my Women's World issues.  It's a little hard to find and a bottle is a little pricey but is defintiely worth the money.  I get mine at either Whole Foods or Wegmans. My sister has seen it at Target also.  It comes in a bottle that actually looks like a watermelon rind and you'll find it in the healthier drink sections.  I have some in my fridge right now and yesterday we had some unusual summer-like weather and I could not stop drinking it.  So good!

[Kachina624]

We discovered an interesting variation by putting the watermelon in an ice chest with a chunk of dry ice.  Much to our surprise, we got sparkling watermelon.  The whole thing was carbonated and very good. If you have access to dry ice, try it.  I think ours sat about 24 hours.