Tomato Craze!

Yesterday morning we made our weekly trek to the UNCA Farmer's Market, about a half mile from our house. We are now in the swing of buying a good bit of our veggies (and some fruit) here before our main weekly shopping trip on Mondays. Our farmer's market includes live music, fresh savory crepes made on site, all kinds of delightfully sweet baked goods which we try really hard to avoid (they are costly, and worth every bite!), veggies, berries, plants and flowers, local cheese, and local meats. It's a bustling market, and we always bump into someone we know. This week, the tomatoes were unbelievably gorgeous!

My dad tells the story of how, when he was very young, my grandmother sent him out into the garden with a salt shaker to fill up on cherry tomatoes. Unfortunately, his eyes were bigger than his stomach, and his stomach eventually protested. After getting sick on tomatoes, I grew up never seeing him eat another fresh tomato. We grew our own cherry tomatoes, both red and yellow bell, but my dad never ate one.

Well, I couldn't pity him more in this late July early August season when the tomatoes are heavy, colorful and plentiful, and absolutely mouthwatering! I did a photo-shoot with my three picks of the day...I think they are Cherokee purple (the darkest one), Brandywine, and I'm not sure what the yellow one is called. I am in love with the Cherokee purple. Tomato tasting should be as fine an art as wine tasting, and I wish I had words to describe the Cherokee purple. My favorite thing to do with in season heirlooms is to chop them up into a fresh, raw marinated tomato sauce which is good on baked polenta, pasta, rice, and you-name-it. I was happy to have three color varieties to make this a pretty sauce, and the recipe comes from Moosewood's Broccoli Forest. It includes a bit of salt, a few tablespoons of olive oil and redwine vinegar, chopped basil, garlic and the chopped tomatoes (I choose not to skin and seed them, they look too pretty with their skins on!). Last night we had it over tortellini.

Next week I have my eye on some green tomatoes for Moosewood's green gazpacho, which I discovered last summer. It includes avocado, cukes, and other green things and it is the best gazpacho I've ever had.

Seth's on his long run of the week, a fifteen mile-r, and after that he will have put in a 44 mile week. Not too shabby for a workin papa who also exercises/feeds the dog every day! He has an incredible gift for running, and I really admire the way that he dedicates time to cultivating it, which keeps him healthy mentally and physically and makes for a much happier family. As for me, I am sore today from yoga, but headed back this afternoon for some more!

Yesterday we took Myles to the Nature Center, a resource in Asheville that we are very lucky and proud to have. At the WNC Nature Center, they have a petting zoo of farm animals, a turtle pond, and then a bunch of wild animals that have been rescued and are being rehabilitated to rejoin the wild, if possible. We spied two black bears, four deer, two bobcats, the most gorgeous sun-basking cougar, but couldn't catch sight of the wolves. We also saw birds of prey, and walked through the butterfly exhibit, which is a temporary thing with bunches of live butterflies. Despite the heat, Myles enjoyed it. I think we'll go back in the fall. He talked to the sheep in his high, sing-song voice that he uses to engage Juniper and other animals. Very sweet.
That's all the news for now. Signing off...