BudgetGourmetKitchen.com

When the USDA placed “fats, oils, and sweets” on the top of the food pyramid in 1992, they certainly had candied walnuts in mind. With its sweet caramelized coating balanced by the mild bitterness of the walnut, this delicacy deserves nothing less than its own shrine on the summit. From up high, the candied walnut casts its shadow over the lesser food groups, daring us to obey its subtitle, use sparingly.

Restaurants take this advice all too literally, reserving candied walnuts only for salads of arugula, apples, and blue cheese. When buying candied walnuts at the store, as well, the high prices encourage us to use them as rarely as possible. The solution, then, is to make them at home, where the ingredients are cheap and the result should be used any way but sparingly.

Candying walnuts at home takes a few steps, as well as unshakable patience while the nuts cool down after being candied. First, simmer the walnuts in simple syrup for a minute or two, then toss them in sugar until just coated. Finally, cook the walnuts in a hot pan with a little oil until the sugar caramelizes and gives the walnuts a shiny coating.

Remove the hot walnuts from the pan with a slotted spoon and let them cool on a plate. Any walnuts touching each other will harden that way, so keep them spread apart.

Some recipes say that you can store the candied walnuts for weeks in an airtight container. We have yet to verify this fact - candied walnuts don’t last in our kitchen for more than fifteen or twenty minutes, no matter how we try and store them.

Other recipes suggest adding cinnamon or grated orange peel to the sugar before tossing the walnuts. Why anyone would want their candied walnuts to smell like a Christmas fruitcake, we don’t know. The only acceptable addition to the sugar coating is salt, and plenty of it. If we were meant to add spices and fruit, their food groups would be up top with the fats, oils, and sweets.

As it turns out, they are. Sort of. In 2005, the USDA decided to replace the socially stratified candied walnut kingdom with some kind of egalitarian triangle - one where all foods share the top and bottom together, and fats, oils, and sweets patiently wait their turn in the pantry for weeks at a time. Maybe some day, USDA. In our book, the candied walnut still reigns.

The watermelon is a rare food that lies at the intersection of juicy and crunchy, satiating the full range between hungry and thirsty. Picked at its peak, it can be the sweetest bite of summer, but somehow blends beautifully with savory dishes like salty, barbecued pork. A food that exists in the crossroads of so many polarizing aesthetics has the power to unite palates from different cultures in a celebration of dribbling juices - the United Nations surely caters all its events with nothing but slices of succulent watermelon.

This spring, watermelon farmers across the country will till their soil in preparation for summer’s demand. While traditional watermelon farming requires lots of experience, the Budget Gourmet Kitchen has been busy reviving an arcane but simple technique for home-grown watermelons: bellybutton farming.

In classic bellybutton watermelon farming, the seed from a ripe watermelon is swallowed whole. The belly button is then exposed to sunlight for as much as six hours a day until the cotyledons - the first leaves of the plant - gently push their way out of the host’s navel.

Thanks to the constant warmth of the host, bellybutton watermelons can survive in a wide range of climates. It’s best to keep the leaves of the plant in as much sun as possible, but don’t worry about watering or fertilizing: for the next 70 to 90 days, depending on the variety, the watermelon plant will absorb a modest amount of nutrients and water directly from the host’s stomach.

There are two schools of thought regarding the proper diet for a bellybutton watermelon to flourish. One camp dictates that the host must have a diet rich in minerals and vitamins. No unpasteurized dairy products are to be eaten, for fear that harmful microbes promote premature decomposition. Nor is alcohol to be consumed, which could permeate the stomach-plant barrier and cause unwanted astringency.

The other camp recommends that no such severe changes of food-intake need to be made, and that the average diet contains enough nutrients for both host and watermelon. Furthermore, it is thought that the plant has an immune system fully capable of tolerating a moderate level of unpasteurized dairy and alcohol.

Once you have successfully grown and harvested the watermelon from your bellybutton, you’ll be happy to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Enjoy it fresh and raw after stuffing yourself with barbecued chicken, or blend it into daiquiries, or wrap it with prosciutto; the possibilities of this versatile fruit are endless. Eat it all on your own, or share it with feuding neighbors. In the right hands, ripe watermelon can mitigate civil unrest as easily as it consummates a family picnic. Just make sure you spit out the seeds, or else… well, you know.