There's an upside to the nasty late-summer heatwave we've been experiencing over the last two weeks: tomatoes. Just when I'd given up on ripe gems of all shapes, sizes and colors, the 90 degree heat has boosted our plants to literal fruition. Hello, late summer.
We have tiny ones both red and gold, rosy diminutive plum shapes, my perennial favorite Wapsipinicon Peach in it's yellow and slightly peachy (surprise, surprise) flesh tones, a healthy number of Green Zebra, some lipstick-red luscious and thin-skinned Principe Borghese, and one that we hauled in yesterday that Christopher has titled "Pumpkin Tomato" which should sum up it's healthy appearance.
So. Here is the late summer conundrum: heat outside plus heat inside at the oven/stove seems insane. How many caprese salads can we eat? How many sliced tomatoes are delicious until you don't want to see another one until next August?! To get my culinary juices flowing, I browsed Martha Stewart's Tomato Recipes, and provided they're well-tested, I'm pretty excited.
Like many others, food is a virtual trip for me as I'm frequently transported back in time to people and places when experiencing a taste from my past.
I look forward to remembering humid Charlottesville nights overlooking rolling green fields, fireflies, and my friend and colleague Phillip's company when I blend up some proper gazpacho. He's the first one who ever showed me how to make it from scratch (recipe? pshaw!) and when he added some old bread (what?) I thought he was crazy. Turns out, that's the proper way to do it, my friends. Divine.
Tomatoes Provencal will take me back to Nice when Mike and I stayed with Nathalie and her family and the only item planned for each day was the dinner menu. She let me help and sent me home with a book on Provencal cooking that I still use.
I'll hopefully have enough fruit to make a batch of Ina Garten's Cream of Tomato Soup. While not entirely wonderful for you considering the cream content, true tomato season comes but once a year and I will think of a fun evening of tomato soup, barbequed chicken and roasted asparagus with Polly and Jeff and the twins two summers ago.
Baked Eggs in Tomatoes and Whole Roasted Tomatoes are also sounding pretty good. Maybe caprese sandwiches for dinner? Or that amazing Grilled Rustic Bread rubbed with garlic and olive oil and layered with all colors of tomatoes and drizzled with balsamic and maybe a pinch of that Fleur de Sel I have stashed away for special times? Oh, yum yum yum.
