tomates

The recipe for the particularly French sounding ‘tomato salad’ specifies heirloom tomatoes. Anthony Bourdain goes so far as to say

“..if you cant get a good tomato, don’t make the damn dish”.

In the introduction section on “scoring the good stuff” he proclaims that “Nothing illustrates the chronic, delusionally determined drive toward mediocrity better than the tomato”, citing Italian restaurants that serve cardboard-like tomatoes out of season, before going into some detail on the benefits of acquainting oneself with local slow-food movements. Anthony is reluctant to subscribe to the notion of saving the world through sustainability or whatever perceived ambitions of the movement, but puts forth that the food really is better, so why not encourage your local grower, market, artisanal goat cheese maker, etc..
I reckon slow, local, independent produce really is better, AND what better place to make a difference than at the kitchen table. Two things that come to mind when thinking on this subject and that have really inspired me, are Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’, and the doucmentary ‘The Real Dirt on Farmer John’. You can watch the entire thing on youtube, but I recommend sitting back and watching it in better quality if you can find it.

I have 21 heirloom tomato plants growing in the back yard  – all descendants of a single tomato from last years harvest.. this guy:

Today’s project is to begin netting over this years crop before they start to ripen, fueling copious servings of Anthony Bourdain’s tomato salad and sparing none for the birds.