Miracle Melon

This is a miraculous year for melons. Some wonderful combination of water, sunshine and day length this year has produced the very best cantaloupes I have EVER tasted.

They are so fragrant that they stop me in my tracks as I walk past a pile of them at the market and they are literally candy-sweet. I have had a melon quarter every day this week for breakfast and I plan to do so every day until melon season has passed. My Beloved likes to grind fresh pepper over his morning melon but I'm a purist - all I need is a slice and a spoon.

Even the supermarket melons are terrific this year. My market calls them Tuscan-style melons. Sliced and served with a little salty ham or prosciutto, they are too good for mere mortals - this is truly food for the gods. All you have to do is seed the melon, cut the slices, run a knife underneath to separate the skin, arrange a couple of slices on a plate and pile on fat ribbons of ham or prosciutto, as their salty flavor just enhances the sweetness of the fruit.

Nothing could be simpler and nothing could be better, in my view, than these wonderful melons. When I'm really, really old I'll be boring youngsters with my recollections of the summer of 2010, sonny boy, when the melons were, in a word, heavenly.