Ode to Tomatoes

Salsa and salads and sandwiches and sauces and soups.  And biting into them right off the vine; warm from the sun with a basil leaf from the plant nearby.  I want admiration for my tomatoes.  I held them up to my husband and demanded he note their perfection.  “Yeah, they are tomatoes.”  (Though he bragged later to my mother about how beautiful they were–he did notice!).  Secretly, what impresses me most:  I put plants in the ground and added water.  No other effort expended.  Grace. 

The street filled with tomatoes, midday, summer, light is halved like a tomato, its juice runs through the streets…Unfortunately, we must murder it: the knife sinks into living flesh, red viscera a cool sun, profound, inexhaustible, populates the salads…happily, it is wed to the clear onion, and to celebrate the union we pour oil, essential child of the olive, onto its halved hemispheres, pepper adds its fragrance, salt, its magnetism;

it is the wedding of the day, parsley hoists its flag, potatoes bubble vigorously, the aroma of the roast knocks at the door, it’s time! come on! and, on the table, at the midpoint of summer, the tomato, star of earth, recurrent and fertile star, displays its convolutions, its canals, its remarkable amplitude and abundance, no pit, no husk, no leaves or thorns, the tomato offers its gift of fiery color and cool completeness.  –Pablo Neruda

Yes, Scott–we’re having roast for dinner.  Don’t work late.