By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be found by the beach glued to a lounge chair during a long overdue break getting my sunburn ON whilst celebrating one of my best friend’s wedding at Hamilton Island. This holiday comes at a perfect time as I recover from a crazy 2016 which saw me make some serious LIFE changes that included transitioning from full time Ad Exec to entrepreneur where my weeks are now split between helping writers publish their books in this digital age along with renovating and styling properties. It’s been over a year since I had quit my job to go after my dreams to do what I love and honestly, it’s been the toughest but certainly the most fulfilling and exhilarating journey of my life so far. The initial fear of flying solo has passed and has since been replaced by the pure joys of seeing the real impact I am fortunate enough to make to people’s lives. So many amazing opportunities have come my way because I took the leap from speaking gigs to unexpected doorways and haven’t looked back since. I’ve always said “The only time time you should look back is when reversing a car!”

Summer so far has been totally rad, surprisingly productive and very eventful – I renovated and moved into a new house, went crazy furniture shopping, ate beautifully sticky glazed ham four ways almost everyday since Christmas, hosted six parties over three weeks and made litres upon litres of Melon Noodle Cooler for my guests who had reminded me of the fact that I still hadn’t published my recipe for this popular drink, oops!

I made a few tweaks to the recipe by adding sago (YASSZZ!), condensed milk and lemon resulting in a more refreshing and texturally fun drink. There are two versions – Adults Only (with Frangelico or Vodka) and PG (non-alcoholic with condensed milk and sago) This drink is super fun to drink making it the perfect backyard BBQ cooler you need this summer.

Zee Ingredients

1 ripened Rockmelon
1 cup caster sugar
2 litres of chilled filtered water
Juice of half a lemon
2 teaspoons of vanilla essence
1 can of condensed milk
1 packet of tapioca pearls
Ice

Adults Version

Add 1/2 cup of Frangelico or Vodka.

Zee Method

1. If you’re lucky to own an oldskool melon scraper, this will make the perfect melon noodles otherwise, a vegetable peeler will suffice. Cut the rockmelon in half, remove pips and start scraping away to form thin strips no longer than an index finger. See image below. Transfer into a large pitcher enough to hold at least 4 litres of water
2. Fill with three litres of chilled water. Stir. Add caster sugar, stir until dissolved.
3. Add lemon, vanilla essence, add a handful of ice and stir.
4. Make the sago: Fill a large pot with water and boil. Add packet of tapioca pearls and stir occasionally to prevent it all from sticking together for 15 minutes or until they become translucent. Turn off heat and let it sit for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside in a bowl combined with sugar syrup.
5. Serve it up.
PG Version: Using a ladle, scoop out enough melon noodles to fill ¼ of a glass, add a teaspoon of condensed milk and tapioca pearls then fill the remaining of the glass with the melon cooler sans the noodles.

Adults only version: Using a ladle, scoop out enough melon noodles to fill ¼ of a glass, add Frangelico OR Vodka and one teaspoon of tapioca pearls then fill the remaining of the glass with the melon cooler sans the noodles.

You’ve been served

I hope you’ll enjoy slurping my recipe for Melon Cooler down, in the meantime, I’ll be ‘attempting’ to get at least one shade darker at Hamilton Island. The below shot taken taken on the first day outside one of the best places I’ve stayed in – The Beach Club. Did I mention they also give away free Movenpick ice cream throughout the day as you lounge by the beach or their glorious infinity pool??!!!

P.S As a long time sufferer of ‘the sneeze’, I’m also celebrating the fact that HAYFEVER season is over.  I do however, have strong suspicions that the wrath of pollen still lingers in the air and as summer progresses, is slowly being replaced by another by yet another foe – blood sucking mutated mosquitoes that have an insatiable appetite for my blood. I stepped out to water the garden for a few minutes and I came back with twelve bites, WTF?! I now walk around with a blue citronella patch on my arm which is just embarrassing and voids any attempts to smell like a gentleman as opposed to a walking inspect repellent.

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Keep eating…EVERYTHING!

Adrian