Watermelon Salad

By Paul Briand

Several members of my very large family try to get together each year for Independence Day festivities in Maine.

My Mom lives in Wells, near Moody Beach, and each year we have a big throwdown of the usual barbecue suspects -- burgers, dogs, chips and a variety of side dishes, which this year included an orzo salad and a Thai cabbage salad.

I had fed everyone earlier in the weekend with two big pots of chili and used some of the leftovers for chili dogs.

But one pleasant side dish surprise was a watermelon salad from my sister, Ella, that is amazingly simple but amazingly good in its blend of seedless watermelon, feta cheese and fresh mint.

That's it. That's all there is to it.

Fresh mint is key. Fortunately for us, my mother has mint growing in a section of her flower garden.

Everything in this salad is proportional to how much watermelon you use and how much of the mint or the feta you want as a complement.

When we were loading ourselves down with hamburgers and chili dogs and everything else the watermelon salad was a cool, sweet/tangy aperitif.