sublime food: how to master breakfast like a hawaiian resort

When I close my eyes, I can almost feel the balmy morning breeze off the Pacific as I remember the way the morning sun dappled us as we sat on the lanai at our resort enjoying breakfast of a coconut muffin and fresh, lovely pineapple and cantaloupe.

I've  finally mastered the art of the coconut muffin (see an earlier post) but cutting up pineapple has always been an annoying task that I would rarely buy a whole pineapple or a cantaloupe. I never learned how to prepare these two fruits properly. I polled my friends and it seems we all learned how to cut up pineapple and cantaloupe from our moms the exact same way.

Typically,  you cut a cantaloupe in half (with peel intact) then remove the seeds, slice the cantaloupe in 8 slices then try to cut the cantaloupe flesh away from the peel. You're usually left with a small amount of cantaloupe or pineapple. Yesterday, however, I discovered the easy way (the RESORT way) to prepare cantaloupe or pineapple.  It's so easy that I prepared both the pineapple and cantaloupe in under 10 minutes.

Here it is step-by-step:



1. Slice the top and bottom off of pineapple to give you a stable surface to work with.



2. Use a large knife and starting from the top, slice off the outer prickly peel in large strips (about 2 to 3 inch sections).



3. Once the peel is removed, cut the pineapple in half lengthwise then each half into four sections (lengthwise.) Finally cut each pineapple spear into 6 bite-size pieces.

For a cantaloupe



1.  Slice the top and bottom off of the cantaloupe to give you a stable surface to work with.



2. Use a large knife and starting from the top, slice off the coarse peel in large strips (about 2  to 3 inch sections).



3. Once the peel is removed, cut the cantaloupe in half lengthwise and using an ice cream scoop, remove the seeds.



4. Cut each half into four sections (lengthwise.) Finally cut each cantaloupe spear into 6 bite-size pieces.

Enjoy! Aloha!