Thank you Robin for hosting this fun Summer Stock Sunday. If you would like to participate or view more fun photos head on over to check out Robin's blog today.
When I was a little girl we use to have a watermelon and fruit man come to our neighborhood in New York. The fruit man drove an old and noisy school bus that you could hear approaching from a mile away. All the grandmothers would call out to us kids to run and get their little black change purses. Didn't every little Italian grandmother have a little black change purse back then? It became a social hour with the grandmothers gathering around the bus to exchange recipes while they picked out their fruits and vegetables. They all boasted the best eggplant recipe this side of the ocean. An old scale hung on the outside of the bus where the fruit man would weigh the items. Now this was our chance to raid the peach basket inside the bus. Of course the fruit man would run after us and tried to catch us. He called us who knows what in Italian and each week we repeated the peach game with him. We all thought this was the most fun and the start of my peach addiction.
Later in the week, the watermelon truck would come rolling up our block. It was a regular farm truck and the owner would yell out in a thick Italian accent "Watermaloon". All the kids on the block would run behind his truck and yell "Watermalloon" trying to imitate his accent. For many years I thought that was the way you actually pronounced watermelon . If you did not have the money for a watermelon, he would take this old paper bag that he kept as his ledger sheet and put a plus on it to indicate you owed him double the next week. We did not always buy a watermelon as it was considered a luxury in those days. When we did have money for one it was a slice of heaven. I remember sitting with my piece and being fascinated with the wonderful pink and green colors. Those big black seeds were so much fun for spitting contests.
Today when I eat the first summer peach & "watermaloon" slice I am immediately transported back into time and can feel that same sugar rush. Oh how I enjoy the taste of summer time!
