Fresh Tomatoes

I gave up on storebought tomatoes years ago - after tasting the genuine commodity fresh from the garden, those gassed red globes from the supermarket seemed pointless as well as tasteless. (A tiny bit of locavorism, before I knew such a thing existed.) So the only time we eat fresh tomatoes is when they ARE fresh: from ours or someone else's garden.

With what excitement we plant them out every May, trying to ignore the "69 Days to Harvest" on the tag or seed packet, hoping against hope that by some miracle it might happen sooner. With what breathless anticipation we watch the blossoms come out, the baby fruit develop and grow. The day the first tomato blushes is a red-letter day in every sense, and the countdown begins in earnest from there.

The tomato tide begins with a trickle: where we live, the small varieties ripen in late July (although this year I picked my first yellow grape tomatoes on the 14th). Like jewels, they sparkle from salads and omelettes. Soon there are more than we can keep up with and I start throwing them into a freezer bag for mid-winter stews and soups.

But cherry and grape tomatoes are merely the first hint of the bounty to come. The real culinary fun starts when the bigger varieties come on. Then we can enjoy that simplest and best of summer salads: tomatoes with fresh basil, olive oil, salt and pepper. Not to mention tomato-zucchini gratin with fresh thyme and Parmesan cheese. Pasta with fresh tomato sauce, chunky and textured. Fresh tomato pizza. Grilled ham-and-muenster-and-tomato sandwiches. And my all-time favourite omelette filling: tomatoes, goat cheese and fresh basil - it's like having summer for breakfast.

The sweetness of the tomato harvest is, like most of life's pleasures, tinged with sorrow. Spring is gone, and summer will soon pass. We're on the downhill slide to autumn and winter, and tomatoes, at their peak, represent the last flare of the garden's flame before it dies out in frost. All the warmth and sunshine of the fertile year seem to be distilled in their brightness.

But for now, the harvest is just beginning. We picked our first full-size tomato tonight and ate it with sliced cucumber and homemade falafel. It was delicious.

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