Watermelon Shark

Fourth of July fell on a Thursday. Lisa was off, the kids were off, the team was on a quiet week before camp started, and we hosted the neighborhood for the first time in three years. About forty people on and off through the afternoon and evening — neighbors, a few coaching staff families, a couple of kids from Diego's class with their parents, the Petersens, the Singhs, Jim from down the block who came at three and stayed until eight and ate enough brisket to alarm a cardiologist. The brisket I had been smoking since five in the morning. Eighteen pounds, packer, with a salt-and-pepper-and-chile bark and a long stall and a final internal of two-oh-three. I rested it for two hours wrapped in a cooler. It came out tender enough that the slices folded themselves apart on the cutting board. The smell of brisket on the patio at three p.m. is one of the great smells of an American summer.

The Fourth of July is a complicated holiday in my house. It is a real holiday — we hang the flag on the porch, the kids wear red white and blue, we make the food, we watch the fireworks from the front yard at nine-thirty when the city display goes off over the high school, and Lisa and I have a quiet ten-second moment of acknowledging that we live in a country we are grateful for and that we believe we should keep working on. But the Fourth is also the holiday closest to the day my brother Ruben was killed in Helmand Province on July 24, 2017. Every Fourth of July since 2017 I have spent some part of the day on the patio, alone, thinking about Ruben, thinking about the boys he served with, thinking about the men who came home and the men who did not. That part of the holiday is private. Lisa knows. The kids know. They give me space at some point in the late afternoon and I take it.

This year I sat on the patio at four with a cup of coffee and the smoker still running and I let myself remember Ruben. I thought about him in his uniform the last time I saw him at the family party in 2016, three weeks before his last deployment. I thought about the conversation we had in the backyard that day — when he asked me about my drinking, which I had quit nine years before but which we had never really talked about, and he said, in his quiet direct way, "You did the work. I am proud of you." I had not been ready for him to say it. I had cried a little and tried to hide it. He saw. He pretended not to see, which is what brothers do for each other in a moment like that. He squeezed my arm. We went back inside to the rest of the family. He shipped out twenty-one days later. He was killed eleven months after that. I have been carrying that conversation for seven years.

I prayed on the patio. The smoker ticked behind me. The brisket pulled. Lisa came out at four-thirty with a plate of crackers and cheese and sat with me without saying anything. She just sat there, looking at the yard, drinking her seltzer. After about ten minutes she said, "Talk if you want to. Or don't." I said, "Thinking about Ruben." She said, "I figured." I said, "He would have liked the brisket." She said, "He would have liked the size of the gathering." I said, "He would have made a comment about how I was charging too much for the slaw." She laughed. We sat for a few more minutes. Then we went inside, because the guests were arriving, and the day had to start happening.

The cookout itself was a good one. The brisket vanished. I had also smoked four racks of ribs and a chicken — the chicken for kids and people who do not eat red meat — and Lisa had made eight quarts of slaw and three pans of cornbread and a green salad. Other people brought stuff. The Singhs brought a watermelon salad with feta and mint that I had been suspicious of on principle but that turned out to be terrific. Jim brought a chocolate cake from a bakery in Wash Park that he had been buying from for thirty years. A woman from Diego's class brought a homemade peach cobbler. A man from the booster club brought enough beer for fifteen people, ninety percent of which went home with him because nobody at this gathering really drank, a fact that he did not seem upset about because he, like a lot of dads in the program, has been quietly cutting back too.

We watched the fireworks from the front yard at nine-thirty. The whole gathering moved out to the lawn with chairs and beverages. The kids ran. The neighbors' dogs barked at the booms. I sat in a folding chair with Lisa next to me and Diego standing behind us and the twins in front of us on the grass and Sofia on a porch step. The fireworks were the city's usual mid-tier display — twelve minutes, a finale, a cloud of smoke drifting east. The kids said it was the best fireworks they had ever seen, which they said every year. I held Lisa's hand. I thought about Ruben. The dog tags were under the polo. They always are. Feed your people. The game is won at the table.

I said I had been suspicious of the watermelon salad on principle, and that is true, but what I did not say is that it was also one of the first things to disappear off the table — before the ribs, before the cornbread, before anything. The Singhs brought it carved into a shark, which the kids absolutely lost their minds over, and I stood there at four-thirty thinking about Ruben and the brisket and the neighborhood and how a watermelon shaped like a shark somehow belonged at the same table as all of it. Food does that. It finds its place. The version below is what I put together for the next gathering, built around that same idea: something that feeds people and makes the kids run over and makes the afternoon feel like exactly what it is supposed to be.

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 16–20

Ingredients

1 large oblong seedless watermelon (about 18–20 lbs)
2 cups blueberries
2 cups green grapes, halved
2 cups strawberries, hulled and halved
2 cups pineapple chunks
1 cup mandarin orange segments
2 limes, juiced
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon fresh mint, finely chopped (optional)
2 blueberries or grapes (for eyes)
Toothpicks (for securing fins and eyes)

Instructions

Shape the shark body. Lay the watermelon on its side on a large cutting board. Using a sharp chef’s knife, cut off roughly the top third of the watermelon lengthwise, setting the smaller piece aside — this will become the fins. The large bottom section is the shark’s body.
Carve the mouth. At one of the narrow ends of the body piece, use a marker or toothpick to sketch a jagged zigzag mouth opening. Carefully cut along the line with a paring knife to remove the mouth section. Score and scoop out a shallow cavity inside the mouth area to expose the red flesh.
Cut the teeth. Use the paring knife to carve triangular teeth along the top and bottom edges of the mouth opening. Take your time — even rough triangles read clearly once the bowl is filled.
Hollow out the body. Using a large spoon or melon baller, scoop the watermelon flesh from the body cavity into a large bowl, leaving about a 1-inch shell. Cut the scooped flesh into bite-sized cubes and return to the bowl.
Make the fins. From the reserved top piece of watermelon, cut out a large triangular dorsal fin and two smaller side fins using the paring knife. Pat dry with paper towels.
Attach the fins. Use toothpicks to secure the dorsal fin upright on the top center of the shark’s back. Attach the two side fins to each flank. Press two blueberries or grapes onto toothpicks and insert above the mouth for eyes.
Dress the fruit. In a large bowl, combine the watermelon cubes, blueberries, grapes, strawberries, pineapple, and mandarin oranges. Whisk together the lime juice, honey, and mint, then pour over the fruit and toss gently to coat.
Fill and serve. Spoon the dressed fruit mixture into the hollowed watermelon shark bowl. Pile it high so it spills slightly over the edges. Set on a large platter or tray lined with ice to keep cool during the party. Serve immediately or refrigerate up to 2 hours before guests arrive.

Nutrition (per serving)

Watermelon Shark — The Dish That Surprised Me Most at the Table