8/07/2006 01:56:00 PM|||Jodie Chase|||

All year long I wait for tomato season. As soon as it's over, I go
into mourning, refusing to buy any tomatoes at all, since they are
truly but a shadow of what they could and should be. Around November,
I break down and start bagging the firm Romas at the grocery store. I
dice them up small for my salads. A bit of lesser tomato is better
than none at all, I tell myself.

Between December and May, I make do with such tomatoes, knowing that
when summer arrives, I will get real tomatoes. Wait until summer. I
can do that. I wait until summer. But when the first of June arrives,
I want those tomatoes. I want fresh, juicy beefsteak tomatoes from
the garden. I want to smell them fresh off the vine. I want to fill
my mouth with the fresh, sweet flavor. I want to bite into them as if
they were apples.

But no. This is not possible here in California, at least not if
you're growing them yourself without benefit of a hothouse. June may
indeed be the official start of summer, but it is not tomato time.
July is also summer, yet the tomatoes in my garden remain green. Not
until August do I at long last get what I have been waiting for all
year long.

Adding to the pain of the wait this year was the arrival of ``Tomatoes & Mozzarella: 100 Ways to Enjoy This Tantalizing Twosome All Year Long'' (Harvard Common Press, $19.95). Authors Hallie Harron and Shelley Sikora, who clearly share my love of tomatoes, filled their book with recipes so creative and tempting that the
cookbook is a serious page turner. I have spent hours gazing at the pages: Mozzarella Crostini with Ginger Tomato Jam, Creamy Tomato and Mozzarella Risotto, Rich Tomato Pot Pie. Ummm. I am not sure which recipe I will try first, but I want to try them all.

At long last, offical tomato season has arrived all over the Bay
Area. Sadly, the vines in my own backyard aren't producing many
tomatoes at all. I'm not sure why. But thankfully, I have connections
at the other end of town, where the vines are producing pounds upon
pounds of tomatoes every day. Those who live on the tomato-side of
town are literally up to their ears in tomatoes, eating them for
breakfast, tomatoes for lunch, tomatoes for dinner.

Even better, the tomato-weary are SHARING!!! My kitchen is now
stacked with gorgeous red globes that I can recklessly eat any time
of day. I like tomatoes cubed in a bowl with toasted bread cubes and
cheese. I love it when the tomato is so big that it takes just one
gorgeous slice to cover an entire piece of toasted bread.

Before the season is out, I will make tomato soup spiked with clove
or dill. I will make fresh, warmed tomatoes on pasta, and my favorite
casserole, fresh tomatoes on a pile of mashed potatoes, topped with a
handful of mozzarella.

Also before the season is out, I'll make some of the recipes in my
new ``Tomatoes & Mozzarella'' cookbook. Then, come late September
when there are no fresh tomatoes in sight, I plan to tuck the book
away. I will put it completely out of sight so I can endure the long,
tomatoless season that lies ahead.

-- Jolene Thym

|||115498471446904287|||Tomato season