Sunday, October 9, 2011

The Joy of Late Summer Tomatoes


We are enjoying a rare and precious treat here in Alabama this beautiful October Sunday.  My husband found a supplier to satisfy our unending addiction to summer tomatoes.  A brilliant marketer-gardener planted a regular and a late crop of the delicious fruit.  We are such regulars, the gardener simply reaches under his produce table when he sees my husband, in his trademark Panama hat and Hawaiian shirt, approach and discreetly hands him his special stash of heirlooms each Saturday morning at the Pepper Place Farmer’s Market.

Heirloom tomatoes, as a rule, are not a pretty fruit.  Their wrinkles and pits may scare off the uninitiated, but to the addicted, they are beautiful.  Kind of like an ugly child to its grandparents.  Love sees no faults.

A little salt, a little pepper and the "Alabama Caviar" is ready.  Our sixteen-year-old even comes out of her room for a while to join in the feast.  World Peace is next on our list.