Jessie, in Northern New England  still reeling from the swing in temperature  over the past few days

I am not sure about the rest of you but sudden changes in temperature leave me feeling adrift and lethargic. I lose the ability to plan ahead with certainty. I stumble about wondering what to wear and what to feed my family. Temperatures in the 90s in early June have left me in that regrettable state of affairs.

Fortunately there is one recipe I look forward to preparing even when the rest of the weather situation leaves me in misery. I hope some of you will enjoy it too. It is fast to prepare, cool to eat and should the weather suddenly turn cool again can be tossed in the freezer and used later.

Take a watermelon and chunk it up into bite sized pieces. Don’t worry about being too neat, just be thoughtful about the size of the average human mouth. Place in a bowl big enough to stir things round without too much inconvenience.

Get a hold of somewhere between 5-10 stems of mint. It needs to be fresh but the variety doesn’t really matter. Strip off the leaves and cut into thin ribbons. I prefer to use kitchen shears for this task. Mix into the melon chunks.

Now squeeze the juice out of a lime and add it to the melon. Add a couple of good sized spoonfuls of rum. Stir it all up. Give a taste and decide if you need more lime juice or more rum. If the flavors are still flat, or if the color of the melon is still a bit peaked, slosh on more of whichever or both. Stir again. Sample again. Serve to enthusiastic applause. If you have leftovers, which you probably won’t, this is great frozen or pureed and then frozen and served like a granita.