Sometimes simple is best. Like slices of homegrown tomatoes on a piece of fresh challah, spread with butter, eaten on the deck in your own back yard in summer.
The tomatoes are the big news. After, well, too many years of having them just not come in — hard green spheres that never ripen — they are bountiful this year. The only thing I did differently this year was, early in the season, hit them with a few doses of Miracle Grow Tomato Plant Food. So maybe they deserve the credit, not me.
I can't even describe how a tomato freshly picked from the garden tastes. Not like grass. Not like a store-bought tomato. It tastes like sun, and laughter, and summer. Not something to be expressed in mere words.
The challah is from Kaufman's, in Skokie, so was fresh and superlative. Sent by a reader as part of a care package to make sure I wasn't starving while laid up. Thank you for that — thanks to all the good wishes from everybody. Very much appreciated. Had I thought about using this photo, I would have moved the ashtray out of the shot — readers zero in on a detail like that. Don't worry; the ashtray is from my hometown of Berea, Ohio, and hasn't been used in years — I usually smoke a cigar on the front porch, flicking the ashes into the hydrangeas. I noticed the ashtray in the basement a couple months ago and brought it up, but haven't used it yet, haven't smoked a cigar in months — tobacco and healing from surgery do not go hand in hand. Not even this week after a former colleague, doing a wellness check, brought by a trio of my favorite Rocky Patel Vintage 1990s from Iwan Ries. Though the day I light up one of those bad boys draws ever nearer. The surgeon said Thursday I can go without a sling, in the privacy of my own home, and I have been reveling in that, though eventually the arm becomes taxed and I sling up again.The weather was so nice, my wife suggested breakfast outside. Sitting on the deck for that hour, with the tomatoes and the challah, hot coffee plus a few — okay, four — Kaufman's cookies for dessert might have been the best hour of summer. Though, as I told Edie, it wasn't really four cookies. One was a rugelach.
For years, my occasional summer breakfast has been heirloom tomatoes bought at the local Farmer's Market, on toasted, seeded rye, with a sparse sprinkle of salt and a light drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
ReplyDeleteyou need oregano with that
DeleteHomegrown tomatoes are the best. Popping a cherry or grape tomato into your mouth, still warm from the sun? Bliss.
ReplyDeleteI can eat cherry tomatoes like chips. Grape tomatoes not the same or as sweet.
DeleteYummmmm! I could eat tomatoes from the garden like an apple! Do you ever eat yours with a nice thin slice of vidalia onion?
ReplyDeleteTomatoes and challah and hot coffee outside on the deck are a perfect summer experience. Let's address bakery cookies. All of them, no matter where they are from always taste the same to me. Artificial. Like store bought tomatoes, I prefer homemade cookies. I will be able to walk past store bought cookies the rest of my life.
ReplyDeleteI check on our garden each morning, only to see chipmunks carrying off the cherry tomatoes, while something much larger has carted off the Big Boys. Only the flavorless Romas are left. A cigar sounds good — maybe next year I’ll plant tobacco plants instead
ReplyDeleteMix slices of fresh garden cucumbers with those just picked tomatoes, drizzle on a little olive oil, and sprinkle a dab of salt and oregano over all. My late summer favorite treat.
ReplyDeleteah, oregano on tomatoes, the best
DeleteGarden tomatoes; delicious.😊
ReplyDeleteSandyK
Our basil grows right next to the tomatoes. Olive oil from our friends grove sent from pulia on fresh baked Italian bread. Manga!
ReplyDeleteA few years ago I happily moved from my house with 4 sets of stairs to a condo with an elevator. Not so happily I left at the same time my vegetable garden of 50 years where I grew loads of tomatoes. I get them from the farmers market now but there is nothing that can compare to the one you pick of the vine on a warm summers day. One reason I think your tomatoes are so good this year is the rain. It has come at just the right time and in the proper amounts. No amount of watering can ever replace a well timed rain. Even the farmers market tomatoes are better this summer than in recent years.
ReplyDeleteAre you familiar with the song "Homegrown Tomatoes" by Guy Clark? Here's part of it: "Only two things money can't buy / And that's true love and homegrown tomatoes".
ReplyDeleteAnonymous2:29- No balcony for a tomato pot or a hanging bag planter?
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you, Neil. A summer without garden tomatoes would be like being in the desert without a canteen. My recent fixer has been my brother in Mackinaw, IL where last year he harvested about 900 lbs. of tomatoes and gave them away to everyone he encountered. This year's harvest was very disappointing. I picked about 10 lbs. yesterday. Although smaller than last year's crop, they were worth driving 150 miles for. The great thing is, you can eat them with one hand and still wear your sling.
ReplyDelete