I Ate Tomatoes Over The Sink...

 

Tonight I ate tomatoes over the sink.  Well, just about over the sink.  I did it because I could.  There was no one here to stop me.

I ate them over the sink because they were ripe and juicy and so unexpectedly good after a Fall, Winter, Spring, and almost half a Summer worth of useless, tasteless, crappy, mealy, hot house-flown in, store bought tomatoes.   I ate them over the sink because once I started I could not stop. 

It began in this way….  You see, I’ve been hoarding the ripe tomatoes this week – the very first of the season for me.   I’ve left them to go really ripe on the vine, not taken a moment sooner.  I have a business lunch at the loft on Friday and wanted to impress and confound with some caprese.   What could be more charming?   But, tonight as I was searching for leftovers to brighten up some brown rice pasta with pesto I had brewing, I saw the Mozzarella di Bufala Campana would not be “technically” good by then.  It couldn’t go to waste. 

So, I sliced ONE small tomato, an heirloom variety that has grown so bushy and my gardening notes are so woefully scant that I can no longer see the tag and have no other reference at this point to put a name to it.  On the same plant, the tomatoes themselves range from San Marzano-like to more delicate bell shaped drops of deep orange-red that gently fold and curve into themselves as if to be wearing their best Victorian skirt to the “ball of the year”.

I sliced it, sprinkled a tiny bit of salt and piled on a small slab of the mozz.  Oh My.  It wasn’t quite a Jersey Tomato from my youth, (with a capital J and a capital T), but the flesh was just the right amount of acidic and then a surprise, as the sweet, sweet juices came rushing in to make it right.  It tasted – I kid you not - RED.  You could feel each ray of sunshine that had brought it from green to red to plump and juicy dancing on your tongue.  It tasted like SUMMER.  It tasted like PLEASURE.

And so I had another.  And another.  And, yes, another.  And shamefully, another.

“Slice, salt, mozz, groan with pleasure”. 

I ate them over the sink to catch the juices and because I ate them so fast, one right after another, I couldn’t move from that place;  the pesto pasta abandoned.  Honestly, it would have been gluttonous, but for the size of the tomatoes! 

I ate them over the sink because I could.  There was no one to stop me.  And, still, with each bite of such taste-flavor-juiciness, I wished someone, you, were here to moan and groan and hmmm and yummmm with delight in what I’ve grown and how good the earth and wind and sun and water were to me and these lovely little tomatoes.

I wished someone, you, were here to share in the sweet goodness that were once my bowl of tomatoes.  And I wouldn't even be bothered if you ate them over the sink, too.