tomato season opened a few weeks ago. and then it seemed that tomato panic ensues. as it always does. heirlooms for 4 dollars a pound, three, two, one fifty?? we get up with the sun and stuff all of our canvas sacks into the car and hurtle down into the valley to the markets. any markets. as long as there are tomatoes we can buy. the uglier the better. the more cracked. the more lopsided; the heavier and more fragile the better. we learn what the tomatoes want in the car. especially when we go to scoop them onto the counter and find we have transported tomato puree in the lower most layers. we evolve. we come prepared with downy pillowcases to swaddle the fruits. we tuck them into tall mason jars and throw them around more bravely. we line them up like pirates with loot and get giddy seeing all the colors, seeing the gold and red shaded light go swimming off their sides and across the kitchen counters.
when you are confronted with many tomatoes you know the time is swiftly on its way out. even as it opens. and so the best thing to do, we decide, is to try to keep them as still as we can. glistening in oil, studded with bruised garlic cloves, showered with basil, sprinkled sparingly with coarse salt and roasted until just before they threaten to collapse. in a cool oven. preferably in tiers. so the smell of summer warms and blooms in a kitchen that may already be threatening to crisp and snap into fall.
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