Summer Tomatoes

I recently spent a week eating in restaurants.  I was on a short summer vacation in a nice place that had some excellent chefs.  But I quickly tired of eating someone else's cooking.  I got weary of the fuss, of the garnishes, of the extra salt that made my ankles swell.  Plus when you're in an unfamiliar city, as I was, even good-to-great restaurants can become a game of chance.  By the end of the week I was experiencing the odd sensation of being hungry at meal-time yet having no appetite. 

Because it's summertime, I also wanted to be eating food that's in season instead of from a menu put together months earlier.  I was craving tender green vegetables, soft lettuce leaves, messy fruit desserts, and most of all -- a just-picked tomato.  One of my most powerful taste experiences was the first time I ate a tomato right off the vine.  My mother had a small vegetable garden in the backyard and hoping she wouldn't notice, I took a slightly orange, still-ripening tomato off the carefully staked plant.  It was still warm from the sun when I bit into it, breaking through a tender skin into soft flesh and a juicy, gelatinous packet of seeds that were full of acidic flavor.  That moment was decades ago but I don't think anything has ever tasted so perfect.  Everyone's got their own madeleine and that tomato is mine.

When I reached an age that gave me complete control over what I ate, I began an annual summer search for the perfect tomato.  My rational side knows this is all about sense memory and no tomato can ever taste that good.  Still, every July I begin the hunt.  A few years ago when heirloom tomatoes became stylish I thought this was the answer.  After all, anything that was that ugly -- and that expensive -- had to taste amazing.  Maybe some do, but not any that I bought.  I tried growing apartment-sized tomato plants but produced nothing that you'd dare eat.  I even bought a New Jersey tomato at Fairway and put it to warm on a window sill, pretending I just snapped it off the vine.  How dumb is that?

These years of buying and tasting have produced a tomato repertoire.  If, like me, you're filling your kitchen counter with summer tomatoes, here are some ideas for what to do with them:

• Tomato sandwiches made with thick slices of soft white pullman bread, a thick slice of beefsteak tomato, a generous spread of home-made or Hellman's mayonnaise, and a sprinkle of sea salt.  Eat immediately using two hands.
• Naples Tomato Salad made of chunks of tomato mixed with equally chunky pieces of crunchy vegetables like celery, kirby cucumbers, and radishes dressed in the tomatoes' own juices, a pinch of mint, and extra virgin olive oil.  See our recipe.
• Gazpacho.  Whether you prefer chunky or smooth, mellowed with ground almonds or spiked with sherry vinegar, gazpacho is one of Spain's great gifts to civilization.  I seem to use a different recipe every time I make it, but one of my favorite finishes is to keep it chilled with a scoop of savory Tomato Sorbet.  See our recipe for this spicy frozen treat -- made with both canned and fresh tomatoes.
• Make a simple salad of tomatoes with a drizzle of good balsamic vinegar, your best extra virgin olive oil, and a pinch of sea salt.  This works with cherry tomatoes, heirlooms or plain New Jerseys.
• Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Salad.  Cook pieces of your favorite bacon (I love the Schaller & Weber double-smoked cut in thick slices).  Let cool and then break into 1-inch pieces and toss with a bowl of tender lettuce leaves, slices of red and yellow tomato, a drizzle of your favorite vinaigrette and a pinch of sea salt.
• Fresh Tomato Salsa made with diced tomato, red and green peppers, red onion, minced jalapeno, garlic, cilantro, salt, and a teaspoon or so of extra virgin olive oil.  Let sit for a while for the juices and flavors to combine.  Great as a side to any simply cooked fish.
• Panzanella salad combines tomatoes with pieces of day-old bread.  Mario Batali has a great recipe and we've added a link to it below.
• Pasta with Uncooked Tomato Sauce.  Perfect at room temperature on steamy summer nights.  See our recipe.

Perhaps the best way to eat a tomato is standing in your kitchen, with a dish of sea salt at hand, leaning over the sink as the juice runs down your arm.  Trying to again be eight years old, tasting the summer sun.

 

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