Tomatoes

 

Our sad-looking mess of "beefsteak tomatoes." Small, mealy, and to add insult to injury, something is chewing holes in each one. Chalk that up to wishful thinking. 

The Romas, on the other hand, look good, as do the cherry tomatoes. Even though the summers keep getting hotter, our marine climate isn't great for growing big tomatoes. Too chilly at night. 

In the NYT cooking section I read each morning, they are gushing now about the luscious New Jersey varieties. There is nothing like a perfect tomato sandwich on good white bread. With bacon and mayo, it tastes like heaven.

On the Pennsylvania farm, we gorged ourselves on garden tomatoes for a few weeks, then ate Mom's canned ones for the rest of the year. That's how fresh vegetables worked back then. Now we are spoiled, but somehow things don't taste as good.

But here's something that does: I scored a bag of New Mexico Hatch peppers at Safeway, which means the labor intensive, once-a-year project of making homemade chili rellenos.  A good weekend project.