"It's difficult to think anything but
pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato." - Lewis Grizzard
When I was in elementary school (somewhere
between 1st and 3rd grade, the dates are hazy) my
parents, sister and I lived in a house in Southern California that had been
previously owned by my grandparents. It was a bizarre kind of doubling of
childhood memories: I can remember sitting with squirming impatience on the
piano bench at the long dinner table during family Thanksgiving, waiting for
the moment when I would be released to sit on the back steps with my
Great-Uncle, hoping he would teach me more words to “You Are My Sunshine”. On
top of that is the breathless weight of lying in bed in my uniquely constructed
bedroom, three walls of windows swallowing me in the hum and buzz of a summer
night.
But the most lasting legacy of my grandparents’
inhabitance of that house came from a row of tomato plants that ran along the
back fence. If you’ve never had a fresh-picked tomato that still carries the
fuzzy green scent of its attatchment to the vine, you’re missing out: I can
still taste the tartfresh slide of it against a piece of cheese and bread, the
overwhelming tomato-ness of it standing up to the bite of yellow mustard.
(I never said my tastes as a child were gourmet.
I still contend that yellow mustard is awesome, though I have since discovered
the magic of Dijon and other varieties on a sandwich and elsewhere.)
More nostalgia and tomato-fueled deliciousness after the jump!
More nostalgia and tomato-fueled deliciousness after the jump!
