Justine Larbalestier

reading, writing, eating, drinking, sport

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Tomatoes

The tomatoes right now are unspeakably good. I went to the Tompkins Square farmers’ market this morning and bought eight different kinds. Yum. They’re so sweet and flavouresome they don’t need dressing. Just salt and pepper and a squeeze of lime and you have the best tomato salad ever.

They also had the first cape goosberries (husk cherries) of the season. Heaven! And the fresh garlic keeps on. I think I’ll do a stir fry tonight of kale, lebanese cukes, garlic and onion. (All bought at the market.)

Even though I’m locked in working my arse off on the UFB and can’t remember the last time I talked to a real human being (other than Scott) I’m still eating well! Sometimes I think cooking is the only thing that keeps me sane.

Posted by Justine at 13:27, 12 August 2007 under Food, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Praising, Whingeing | 15 Comments »

Comments

  1. janet Says:

    Yum. I love this time of year. I call it “ratatouille season.”

    August 12th, 2007 at 3:17 PM

  2. Dess Says:

    food is good. have you ever heard of a tomatillo? (i think that’s how its spelled.) it looks like a tomato but it has a garlic like skin on it. very interesting. i think its called a tomatillo because it has a shell like an armadillo (not really i just cant figure out why and that sounds good wnough.)

    August 12th, 2007 at 6:33 PM

  3. Dess Says:

    *enough

    August 12th, 2007 at 6:34 PM

  4. Lauren Says:

    corn’s good too now. Check it.

    August 12th, 2007 at 7:26 PM

  5. e. Lockhart Says:

    ahm
    Friday you talked to ME

    your post made me hungry

    August 12th, 2007 at 7:54 PM

  6. Rebecca Says:

    i was already hungry b/c there is no such thing as lunch in this house, and this post made it worse. the best way to eat a tomato is to slice it across the middle and lightly salt it. cooking them with zucchini and yellow squash is tasty too. *drool*

    August 12th, 2007 at 8:41 PM

  7. Tim Walker Says:

    dess: “tomatillo” means “little tomato” in Spanish, I think. We use them here (in texas) to make salsas etc. If you’re ever in this neck of the woods (from Austin south to the border), try enchiladas with tomatillo sauce.

    re tomatoes: my great-grandmother used to serve tomatoes grown in her garden. she was blissfully unacquainted with modern agricultural chemicals, but extraordinarily well-acquainted with the folk cooking traditions of the deep south, where she lived all of her 90+ years. She would serve these tomatoes, fresh from the garden – they had never in their lives been cooled – with “dinner” (i.e. lunch). The entire preparation for them was: slice fairly thick, serve with salt. Sweet red heaven on a plate.

    August 12th, 2007 at 9:47 PM

  8. 8. Justine Says:

    Lauren: Yes, we got corn as well. Sheesh.

    I just can’t get as excited about corn on account of you can get great corn at home. But not tomatoes. US of A heirloom tomatoes are the best I’ve ever had. Yum!

    August 12th, 2007 at 9:54 PM

  9. Elmo Says:

    um, i like the tomatoes here…(a lot actually, they look a h*ll of a lot better than the ones they use on Englands ‘ready, steady, cook’…they’re actually *red* for a start…) but i’ve nver been to america, so what do i know?

    my favourite tomato dish is a toss-up between off-the-vine-tomatoes with cheese and tomatoe pepper or stewed tomatoes, which is only slightly more complicated.

    xo (lol) elmo

    August 12th, 2007 at 11:19 PM

  10. Elmo Says:

    There is no such thing as tomatoe or even tomatoe pepper…that was a major typo.

    August 12th, 2007 at 11:20 PM

  11. katerate Says:

    A tomato sandwich is sounding really good right about now :q. Good luck with the whole writer isolation thing. And you know. The whole writing thing.

    (I’m really excited for the UFB, by the way!)

    August 13th, 2007 at 12:37 AM

  12. Sabrina Says:

    My mother likes to make a tomato salad with roma tomatoes, fresh, chopped garlic, a bit of oil, salt, and parsley (I think, maybe it’s basil, she uses a lot of both in many recipes).

    And unrelated to food, but still interesting–a 400-level English class at my school (University of Hawaii-Manoa) is using your book, “Daughters of Earth,” in a class on gender and sexuality in sci fi, alongside ‘Frankenstein,’ Freud and Le Guin.

    August 13th, 2007 at 4:25 AM

  13. kim Says:

    i hate tomatoes. love corn and paotoes

    August 13th, 2007 at 9:28 AM

  14. Dess Says:

    little tomatos huh? well that does make more sense that armadillo tomatos.

    August 13th, 2007 at 10:21 AM

  15. suzanne Says:

    We also call cape gooseberries ‘ground cherries.’

    I was just visiting new york, and I went to the union square greenmarket, and now I understand why you couldn’t find Thai herbs there. It has quite a different character from the farmers markets here in minnesota, where most of the vendors are hmong farmers and have all sorts of interesting herbs for sale.

    August 14th, 2007 at 11:03 AM

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