time spent
I didn’t go to the Farmer’s Market once in July. I got so in the habit of going with C. that when she was out of town, I forgot take myself over there. The deeper meaning of this is that I missed an entire month of tomatoes, a month I'll never get back. And I am a woman who spent all spring longing and waiting for the first tomatoes so show up, who occasionally caved and bought stupid $5 greenhouse heirloom tomatoes because she just couldn’t stand it. The only thing left to do is try to make up for lost time.
So I went downtown this morning and hauled back a pint of cherry and pear tomatoes, two pounds of yellow tomatoes, and quite a few pounds of romas. And fresh bread. And two bunches of basil.
As I was buying the yellow tomatoes, a woman next to me asked what they tasted like. My best answer is golden, lower-acid and more mellow than reds, but still unmistakenly tomatoes. My Sainted Grandma started growing them when I was very small, and I’ve loved them ever since. I turned one of these into a tomato sandwich the second I got home, and then set to work converting the romas into marinara sauce. Onions and olive oil into the pot, then eventually half a head of garlic, then the tomatoes. And then I got out the mezzaluna.
I rarely use the mezzaluna, but it does a great job on herbs. I get sentimental whenever I have it in my hands, since it was one of the first things Mister Husband and I bought together when we decided to set up housekeeping. Rocking the blade across the wood, I can’t help but remember those early shopping trips, which were all about kitchens and hope. That’s what this post was really about, although I felt the need to be more oblique at the time.
The world begins and ends at the table, in the kitchen. And maybe love begins there, too.Since then, we’ve bought furniture and art and stocks together, but I think most of our serious household investments have been made in the kitchen. We even gave each other a pro-grade KitchenAid as a wedding present, even though it’s really too big for an apartment kitchen. That was two years ago now. Two years of marriage, four of living together, and nearly five since I walked into a Queer Theory seminar and wondered who the guy with the ponytail was.
Comments
Pardon me, but your grandmothers grew yellow tomatoes since I was very young. I remember them wondering whether it would be worth wasting the ten cents on a packet of seed from whatever company whose catalog they were thumbing through on a cold, gray winter afternoon – probably Burpee or Park. After much debate, they decided yes it would be worth it, even if the dime turned out to be wasted.
Of course, once they arrived, these Unusual Seeds for the Year were given preferential treatment – the best deep tray to grow in, the best window light, extra careful watering. They were hovered over as they were hardened off and transplanted and even until they yielded their large yellow fruit months later -- which was sunlight captured in a spherical tomato skin. And, yes, they were pronounced less acidic than regular tomatoes, yet with an unmistakable tomatoey flavor. They were my preferred tomato throughout childhood, although my friends made fun of them because these were yellow and thus suspect and certainly not ‘real’ tomatoes.
Years later,when you kids were growing up, we grew the little yellow heirloom grape tomatoes because they were good for little hands, I didn’t have to peel and slice them for so many little mouths, and because y’all loved their almost candy sweetness.
Memories are very personl and subjective, no?
Posted by: mom | August 5, 2007 8:12 PM
Five YEARS!
Posted by: Barb | August 6, 2007 10:31 PM