Cutting Fresh Pineapple

It seems that any '"How To" question one has these days can be answered by looking at a You Tube Video. I've  wondered "Who thinks to film all this normal stuff they do in a day?" I recently was also meditating on the idea of skills that young people learn at work that come in handy later on in life. A friend of mine said that she used to work for a carpet repair shop as a teen and can now spot an expensive handmade carpet at a Thrift Shop and repair it herself.
When I grabbed my camera, it was along this train of thought that I was pondering. I had started to cut up this fresh pineapple. I learned how to cut pineapple while waitressing at a restaurant that served a fancy Sunday Brunch. In addition to pineapples, we also cut up many exotic melons on Sunday mornings. Not only cantaloupe and honeydew but also casaba, crenshaw and canary melons. You can be sure that these were imported as this restaurant was in Vermont!
There may be many ways to do this job, but how I do it is to first cut off the top of the pineapple, the green stalk. Next, slice the fruit into four quarters.

Remove the tough inner fibrous material (the core) by slicing horizontally across each quarter with a steak knife. These are delicious to nibble along the edges if the pineapple is ripe and sweet, then discard these pieces.

Use the sharp knife to slice along the bottom as close to the rind as possible to get every bit of the fruit possible. Once it is free on the bottom, slice along through the middle, and then make bite sized chunks by cutting through in the opposite direction.

I serve the pineapple chunks in a  bowl with a spoon for folks to take a serving but many people like to reach in to grab one piece at a time! Squeezing the rind over the bowl releases lots of sweet juice that otherwise would have been wasted. Fresh pineapple is a terrific addition to any meal or as a special stand alone snack. It takes no time to cut one up, once you know how!