THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, June 21, 1996                 TAG: 9606210507
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Column 
SOURCE: Guy Friddell 
                                            LENGTH:   53 lines

SUMMER'S SUN-SWEETENED FRUITS MAKE LUSCIOUS MEALS - FOR MAN AND HIS DOG

``THERE COMES THE PEACH MAN!'' shouted farmer David Hare when he saw me meandering along the walkway encircling stalls at the Virginia Beach Farmers Market. ``I CAN TELL HE IS LOOKING FOR FRESH PEACHES FROM SOUTH CAROLINA!''

Well, yes, but I also had an eye out for other items, especially cantaloupes.

A wave of fresh fruit and produce is arriving from South Carolina, including hefty cantaloupes, the object of my quest.

Hare raises cantaloupes on his farm in Murfreesboro, N.C., but, the crop having been delayed by the cold, unseasonal spring, the cantaloupes are now about the size of golf balls, at least two weeks away from maturing.

So every Wednesday he makes an 825-mile round trip to fetch from Columbia, S.C., a truckload of cantaloupe, peaches and corn.

How can you tell whether a cantaloupe is ripe? What you shouldn't do is pick one up and start pressing it with your thumbs to determine whether it is fit to eat. Such brusque treatment turns the interior to mush.

You may, if you like, cradle the fruit in your hands, hold it near your nose and sniff to catch a hint of it bouquet.

But the sensible thing to do is simply ask the farmer if the fruit is ripe. He didn't travel all that way to bring back something inedible. When Hare said he had sampled the 'loupes and they were good, I bought a dozen - and they were.

I revel in them, whacking one in two, eating one half at breakfast, the other at supper. There are really two mouths to feed because Boomer the Lab, seeing the cantaloupe in my hand, sits down and looks, not at the cantaloupe, but at me.

I defy anybody to eat cantaloupe, or any other treat, while under the watchful gaze of a dog and not offer him or her a bit.

And then, that done, the dog licks its chops and wags its tail in the most ingratiating way, as if to say thank you. Who would dare discourage such polite behavior?

Boomer, while still a pup, learned about the delectability of cantaloupes by watching Bonnie, his surrogate mother, eat them; and she, while young, picked up the habit by seeing cantaloupes devoured by Duke, the ponderous bassett who would eat anything.

Peaches this year are more expensive than last year because, they say in South Carolina, the cold spring and a late frost cut the peach crop to 10 percent.

``They charge like they're short, I'll tell you that,'' Hare said.

I bought a half-bushel in a basket. Stored in the refrigerator, with half a dozen pulled out every other day to soften, they make a dessert of breakfast. Boomer hasn't shown a taste for them. Yet. ILLUSTRATION: Drawing by CNB