This is a preview of today’s paid post. If you’d like to read more and receive the recipe at the end, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you! The Tomato Diaries: Part One - No. 351Squirrels, revenge, a garlicky dressing + how to roast homegrown tomatoes until they’re jammy
IN JANUARY, I planned the summer garden. It was a first-of-the-year routine that began with scanning seed catalogs at the kitchen table, looking over notes I’d scribbled about new tomato varieties, and reading about soil improvement and composting. By February, after seed and plant orders were placed, I pulled on layers and walked to the chilly garden to roust slumbering cilantro seeds and poke at frigid beds where tomatoes would flourish this summer. Homegrown tomatoes are why I garden. Fat, juicy Cherokee Purples with just a smidge of acid are my favorite tomato to slice onto a sandwich. I ordered new “Pineapple” and Yellow Brandywines this year. And I scrolled through tomato photos from past summers on my phone like a proud grandparent.
In March, the peas went in and cilantro popped its green fronds up through the dirt and greeted me in a way no best friend could. Tortillas, taco salad, and cod slow-cooked with cilantro sauce returned to the dinner menu. By April, I obsessed about soil temperatures and rain forecasts, and I wondered if this would be THE tomato summer. I painted the white picket garden fence and, to be safe, waited to plant tomatoes until the first weekend in May. Finally the time arrived when the peonies along the drive were in full bloom and the rest of the world was busy with graduations and recitals. In my garden, I put in a dozen more tomato plants than I needed because you never know if one plant won’t thrive, another gives up to the heat, and squirrels arrive to rob you of your precious tomatoes.
By early June, I picked peas and arugula and cooked pasta and risotto with them. By mid-June, the okra bloomed, and by late June, the tomato varieties I dreamed about…Black Beauty, Mortgage Lifter, Amish Paste, Jeune Flame, were turning summer shades of pale pink and maize. I ate bright yellow Sun Golds right off the vine. Even when we went out of town the first week of July, I told my friends to come by and water, pick what tomatoes are ripe and some squash if they like, but mostly, look out for squirrels. Rats with tails. Dream busters. They watched my green tomatoes blush pink just as I had and strategically timed their attack to a morning when I slept late.
Their scouts must have arrived weeks before to know which tomatoes were in which bed or possibly to check my schedule and see what time I open the gate. Diving their front teeth into ripened fruit, sinking their faces into the tomato juices and flesh I had funded, the squadron struck the beloved Cherokee Purples first. By the time I arrived with basket in hand, five half-eaten, vanquished tomatoes littered the path. I walked around the garden to see if any bandits remained, but it was quiet. They must have staggered off drunk to their oak trees above and were plotting a return bacchanalia. So I did what had to be done... Subscribe to Anne Byrn: Between the Layers to unlock the rest.Become a paying subscriber of Anne Byrn: Between the Layers to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. A subscription gets you:
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