Tantalizing Tomatoes

You know how sometimes when you order a salad, you bite into a wedge of tomato and instantly want to spit it out because your mouth is filled with vile mealiness and such a complete lack of flavor that you are actually experiencing negative taste, causing your taste buds to curl up and whimper for mercy? I hate when that happens.

Tomatoes ought to be bright jewels of sweetness and acidity, but out-of-season supermarket specimens tend to taste more like a minor crime against humanity. (A misdemeanor against humanity, maybe?) They are zombie tomatoes, picked when still unripe and gassed to force them to turn red (ish). Or, if you find a supermarket tomato that actually tastes halfway decent out-of-season, it's usually imported -- and I don't know about you, but buying produce that burned two thousand miles worth of fossil fuels to get to my plate doesn't really sit right with me. I feel like if I don't buy local whenever possible, I may as well be drunker than a mad baboon while piloting a tanker full of toxic sludge straight into a beachful of baby penguins.

Heirloom tomatoes, on the other hand, are everything tomatoes ought to be, and quite possibly more. They are gorgeous, flavorful, and are often charmingly misshapen. They're real. My favorite tomato source is from my very favoritest farmer's market stand, Happy Boy Farms. I've seen them at lots of (San Francisco) Bay Area farmer's markets, so if you live around here, you too can expereince the transcendent joy of a perfect tomato. To experience tomato enlightenment, all you really need is a little sprinkle of good salt, but I do have one other dish I think is an excellent tomato delivery system, and it's a perfect summer dinner -- Orechiette with Pesto and Heirloom Tomatoes. Recipe here.