They may not be cucumbers, and they look like micro watermelon, but they sure taste like cucumbers, albeit slightly sour cucumbers, with an added, and very distinctive, ‘pop’ when bitten into.

• a simple sauced pasta which began with a couple tablespoons of olive oil inside a high-sided tin-lined copper pot gently heating more than half a pound of halved ‘Mexican gherkins’ (not actually cucumbers, but ‘pepquinos’, or ‘Melothria scabra‘) along with a little crushed dried habanada pepper, after which 8 ounces of an al dente-cooked Setaro Torre Annunziata penne rigatoni were mixed in, and also about half a cup of reserved pasta cooking water, the mix stirred in the pot until the liquid had emulsified, the zest and juice of a Whole Foods organic lemon squeezed added, the pasta seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground pepper, placed in 2 shallow bowls, topped with a pinch of fenugreek and garnished with purple micro basil and drizzled with a little olive oil
• the wine was an Italian (Sicily) white, Valle dell’Acate, Grillo “Zagra”, 2017, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was the album, ‘Night Of The Mayas – Music Of Silvestre Revueltas’