In the 1960's and 70's my mother and her best friend Anne Brunson would make watermelon pickles. It was a several day labor intensive process but the end result was worth it. Our family never had a Thanksgiving or Christmas without Watermelon Pickles (yes, capitalized...these pickles are that important) accompanying the meal. And everyone in our family loved them and we all still do. In the late 70s they stopped making the pickles because watermelon rinds became thinner, which was the one thing in the world my mother didn't want to get thinner. Doesn't it always work out that way? Evidently, thinner rinds are what people want for the watermelon fruit but of course those didn't make great pickles. They stopped making homemade Watermelon Pickle and we started buying them at Deans Farm and the hardware store. Those are OK...actually, they're very good....but we longed for the homemade pickles that our mother and Anne made from their old recipe.

My mother is Anne, her best friend is Anne and I'm about to introduce you to another Ann but she spells her name differently so that should help you keep up with who is who. Are you with me? And if there are three Anne's involved in 1 tale (or 1 Ann and 2 Annes), there has to be some magic about to happen.

In 2015, I put together a cookbook for my children and Anne had the old pickle recipe so I added it into the family cookbook. As it so happened, one of my coworkers, Ann Boyette, and her husband, Larry, grow watermelons competitively and regularly win blue ribbons at the North Carolina State Fair. Being the citified person I am (knowing that a citified Wilsonian is somewhat of an oxymoron) I never knew people grew vegetables and fruit competitively. Susan and I wanted to know more and last fall took our grandson, Alex, to the State Fair to check it out. We looked at all the produce, saw Larry and Ann's blue ribbon watermelon among many other blue ribbon fuits and veggies and were amazed. This competition has been going on longer than the farm to table restaurant rage that I am very familiar with. It's incredible.

At Christmas, I gave Larry and Ann one of my cookbooks and a lightbulb went off in my always-whirling-at-a-1000-miles-an-hour brain as Ann and I flipped through the pages together and I pointed out different recipes to her . I asked her if Larry might be able to get seeds for the old timey watermelons with the thick rinds. She checked with him and said of couse he could and that he would he happy to grow a watermelon for me. The stars were aligning nicely.

Next I called my sister, Lou, and we decided to take a long weeked in late July or early August to follow Anne and Mom's old recipe for the pickles. Lou is a chef and knows how to update the old recipe ingredients into current ingredients (the recipe is included at the end of the post if anyone is interested). Some of the ingredients are no longer produced and substitutions will have to be made. I didn't think about the watermelon too much until Larry called me a few weeks ago to tell me "my" watermelon was almost ready to be "pulled" (that's a fancy farming term for "picked") and it was 100 pounds and he had TWO for me. TWO, ONE HUNDRED POUND WATERMELONS TO SKIN, CUT UP AND PICKLE. If we could do that, everyone in Wilson County and probably Nash County (and maybe even Wake County) would get a jar, if I was feeling particularly generous, which after pickling that much watermelon, I wouldn't be.

After calling Lou, we decided we needed assistance to get the work done and could either hire help or ask our older brother, Johnny, to assist and make it a family job. He loved the idea and signed on immediately (but we may have accidently forgotten to tell him the size of the watermelon. Don't mention it to him if you see him around town.) We also called Larry and told him that one watermelon might be more than we could handle and maybe someone else wanted to pickle the second one. I hope we haven't hurt the second watermelon's feelings.

Here is a picture of the three of us at a zoo in the 1960's which may be a predictor of our watermelon pickling weekend, but maybe not. It's only a few weeks away and we're all getting excited. It doesn't take much these days. And there's more exciting news. Scott Mason, The Tar Heel Traveler on WRAL, has discovered Ann and Larry and their competitive watermelon growing operation and he visited and filmed them yesterday. Look for their story on WRAL sometime in August and remember that you heard it first on my blog. There aren't two nicer people and before you know it they'll be famous and on The Today Show and who knows what other TV shows.

The watermelon at the top of this post is the one that will be entered in the NC State Fair contest but "my" watermelon is below. Aint' she purdy?

It's so beautiful, I kinda hate to cut it until I look at the next picture and think about Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the special occasions we'll have those wonderful pickles on our table. Watermelon Rind Pickles. All capitalized once again. Oh happy day! Larry and Ann will have wonderful Hackney pickles on their table as a thank you for their generosity and time in growing this incredible (and humongous) watermelon. And of course Anne Brunson and her family will have some pickles for sharing the recipe which I thought was long gone long ago. And last but not least, my mother will have as many of these pickles to enjoy as she would like but she will dole them out to herself slowly. She still watches her weight carefully, even at 87.

Mother never liked to cook anything except the (famous-around-here) Hackney potato rolls and the Watermelon Rind Pickles and now the pickles are also a huge part of our family food history. I suppose it's a rarity thing-there aren't a lot of recipes to choose from my mother's recipes but even if there were, Watermelon Rind Pickles would be a favorite. Stay tuned for the pickling weekend stories-that will be a very interesting post. And who knows? Maybe The Tarheel Traveler will want to know more about Hackney Watermelon Pickles and will come by for a visit. Wait a minute. Does that mean we'll be filmed? I've gotta lose some weight if that happens. Just in case, the diet starts tomorrow. I am my mother's son after all.

Anne Brunson and Anne Hackney's Watermelon Rind Pickles

5 pounds of watermelon rind, cut up into bite size pieces

5 pounds of sugar

1 quart of vinegar

1 box of cracked ginger

1 box of pickling spices (1 3/4 to 2 ounces but remove red peppers)

1/2 to 3/4 box of whole cloves

1 bottle of Lilly's lime water

(or 1 cup of Mrs. Wage's Lime Powder added to 1 gallon of water per 5 pounds of rind) cheesecloth

1. Soak rinds overnight or longer in Lime water.

2. Drain rinds and wash thoroughly in cold water.

3. Cover with water and add ginger. Bring to a boil and cook for 1 1/2 hours (should be tender enough to pierce with a toothpick).

4. Pour through colander, drain off ginger water and remove ginger.

5. Tie up the spices in cheesecloth. In a large pot, combine the sugar, vinegar and spices and bring to a boil.

6. Add melon rind and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

7. Remove spices tied up in cheesecloth and discard. Seal pickles and syrup in glass jars.