Sink Snacking A Secret Summer Tradition by Helen Chappell It’s that time of year again, when the last of the summer crops are ripe, plentiful and delicious. Sure, you’ve spent the past month dining on tomatoes, corn, cantaloupe and watermelon like the civilized person your home training taught you to be. You ate at the table, with company, and mostly used a dish and a knife and a fork. Mostly. Watermelon, Miss Manners says, can be eaten by the slice outdoors with or without tableware. If you’re far enough outdoors, you can even have a contest to see how far a grownup person can spit watermelon seeds. It’s a contest I have yet to win. But, when it comes to sink snacking, I’m a pro. When it’s summer and all the good stuff is ripe and ready, who needs a knife, a fork and a plate when you can hang right over the kitchen sink and gnaw like a caveperson? I’ve even been known to eat berries right off the cane, fighting off the birds every bite of the way. I’ve plucked cherry tomatoes and grapes off the vine and munched on them right there in front of everyone, since everyone else was doing the same thing.
But, like many people, including some of my most prim and proper friends and relatives, I have sinned in the food department and will probably go to Eater’s Hell for it. At least I won’t be alone. A lot of you will be there with me. I know I am not the only person who has eaten, right over the sink, a drooling and dripping ripe tomato, lovely orange chunks of cantaloupe, bursting morsels of ripe peach, chunks of watermelon ~ yes, even cold steamed crabs left over from yesterday’s feast. After 9
