critic’s notebook
Let’s be honest, so am I.
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While working on this article, Tejal Rao cut into a dozen cantaloupes and muskmelons.
Alex Weiser popped a single, half-squashed, dark Persian mulberry into his mouth and started to dance on the spot, the rim of his straw hat bouncing in the sun. It was an exceptionally delicious batch of mulberries, but we’re not here to talk about mulberries.
Mr. Weiser runs Weiser Family Farms, and in the last few weeks of summer, his melons are a sublime and inevitable extravagance at restaurants across Los Angeles.
“Weiser melon,” which is how you’ll see them name-dropped on menus and in conversation, doesn’t point to a single variety but to a farm with a zealous year-round following that reaches its feverish peak in summer.
“I’m a believer,” said Aaron Lindell, the chef at Quarter Sheets, a pizzeria in Echo Park. “The propaganda is real.”
Mr. Lindell described Mr. Weiser as “incredibly quixotic,” but always leading him toward excellent ingredients. For the last few years, he has served a striking melon salad using Bonny, a sweet-and-sour melon variety that Mr. Weiser grows using seed from Taiwan, along with some Piel de Sapo or Brilliant melon.
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