This is it! It’s here. The time so many of us are waiting for all year long, the height of tomato season in the Northeast.
For starters, tomato red is a spectacular color, my favorite. I wear it with gusto on my lips and toe nails. It’s splashy, it’s visible in the green foliage like red balls on a green Christmas tree, the red with a bit more yellow than blue, and a very warm hue.
A tomato that has ripened in the sun to the point where it plops into your hand at the slight touch of the vine, one that grew in mineral rich and moist soil, with an even and saturated red all around, has a deep, intense and mellowly sweet flavor. Such a tomato bursts open when you sink your teeth into it, the seeds splashing onto your hand or shirt, the warm juice dripping down your chin. These late summer tomatoes conjure up a few dishes that we only make during those few precious weeks, instead of attempting a pale version with glassy, lightly reddish, almost crunchy year round supermarket tomatoes that are picked green and spend too long on a truck and in a vegetable bin.
family style bruschetta for sharing
Panzanella is such a summer dish, that simple Italian tomato salad with bread cubes which soak up the mix of tomato juices and dressing made of Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and torn basil leaves, an easy and satisfying summer lunch to be enjoyed on outdoors on a shady terrace.
Gazpacho is another ubiquitous summer treat, the raw and chilled Spanish blender soup that takes no time at all to make, a combination of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, salt, pepper, olive oil and some red wine vinegar. The secret is in using enough salt, pepper, vinegar and the chilling which all bring the flavor out. In Spain it’s served with a few croutons on top, but better no croutons than croutons from a box. Cube some good crusty sour dough bread, a few days old is fine, and toss it in a pan with some garlic and olive oil until crunchy. Mmmmmmhhhh.
gently oven roasted cherry tomatoes
Back to Italy with Bruschetta, Panzanella in a different form. Finely cubed tomatoes with salt, pepper, olive oil, a bit of vinegar, perhaps a bit of chopped basil, served on a crostini, a small piece of crusty and toasted country bread that you have rubbed with a garlic clove for that subtle hint, enjoyed in the late afternoon with a chilled glass of rosé. Heaven in a nutshell!
One more - jammy cherry tomatoes that are just starting to melt into the pan as they begin to disintegrate under the heat of the stove or in the oven, with nothing more than salt, pepper, olive oil, a bit of chopped garlic and a few sprigs of rosemary, conjuring up Tuscany in my mind.
Enjoy them now, these beautiful tomatoes, a few more weeks, before the long wait until next summer begins again and that perfect tomato taste fades in your memory.