The eternal question of summer: How do you pick a good watermelon?

As we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of what we call the “dog days of summer” where I grew up in the Midwest, the pandemic has eliminated many of our refuges from the sweltering heat. The frigid comfort of air-conditioned movie theaters? Nope. Public pools? Nuh-uh.

But there is still solace in our food, and nothing slakes the heat better than the sweet crunch of a juicy watermelon. But how do you find a good one?

Cooking columnist Ben Mims and I hit the Super King on San Fernando Road with our intrepid video team and a couple of goals in mind: How do you go about picking a good watermelon? And, perhaps more importantly, how do you detect a bad watermelon?

We thumped, we weighed, we measured, we prodded. And in the end, we learned a lot about melon selection. Check out the video to find out more (and subscribe to our YouTube channel while you’re at it!).