It's summer and that means tomatoes in all their variety, shapes and colors. I started tomato 'farming' on my deck a couple years ago and was so amazed at the taste and output with so little input. Just some good soil, water and lots of sunlight.
And sunlight is the key word. Now I know why we are hearing of 'climate change' rather than global warming. There was not much warm about most of the summer here in Marin. Where there would usually be a bounty of ripe sweet tomatoes from my containers beginning in July, the above photo is what my container tomatoes looked like mid-August!
And it wasn't a fluke. My cherry tomatoes looked the same.What! August and no juicy sweet tomatoes? Yes, the tomatoes from my CSA, organic red and ripe were starting to trickle in, but they still didn't come close to those homegrown ones.
Then I fell into some luck. I was invited to the set of
"Bringing it Home with Laura McIntosh". She and Tyler Florence were going to shoot together about some great ways to include healthy fresh food in your ballpark snacks. Naturally we were at the AT&T Park, home of the Giants.
Unfortuntately, Tyler fell ill and couldn't make it, but his ball park dogs with his tangy grape relish did. I was impressed with Laura's ability to improvise and tape it all solo. I met some friendly people from the California Grape Commission who gave me some freshly picked California black and white table grapes and the recipe (Google Tyler Florence and Grape Relish for the recipe, it's all over the net), and I tried it at home with tofu dogs. It goes well with those too. I was a little skeptical combining garlic, onions, mustard seed and fresh grapes but I liked the result. I used the black ones in another way too, which you'll see later in this post. You can get fresh California grapes in many ball parks now, including AT&T Park. The good people of the Table Grape Commission also gave me a Susan Volland cookbook, "Green Black Red", naturally a book full of grape recipes. You may see some made up and pictured here in the future.
Back to Laura McIntosh and tomatoes. Laura grew up on a farm in Northern California, and knows a lot about healthy farm grown produce. In her show, she brings us to the farms that grow our bounty of top quality food that we bring home to our families. I applaud her concept. I eat mostly organic and local and a good part of the reason is I like knowing who grew the things I put in my mouth. Laura and I talked about peach farming a bit taking me back to summers on my Aunt and Uncles peach and grape farm. I had forgotten all about the fuzzies that rubbed off on all our clothes from the old fashioned Alberta peaches, and Laura took me off into sweet memories about that. She talked to me between takes about her new line of heirloom tomatoes, tomatoes good enough to put her name on.
Laura told me that heirloom tomatoes have to be at least 50 years old and not hybridized to be called heirlooms. The bees do the matchmaking for heirlooms. Laura's organic heirloom tomatoes are from Golden Bear Ranches Joaquin Valley. And she's not the only one that's discovered these beauties, Chefs Thomas Keller of the French Laundry and Bouchon, and Michael Chiarello of Bottega also source their heirloom tomatoes from the same place. All the photos of tomatoes in this post (other than my green tomato photos) are her brand from the Golden Bear. She gave me some large cartons of many sizes and colors to try myself, as well as her cookbook "Entertaining at Home with America's Top Chefs". These tomatoes had just been picked that morning. These were indeed sweet, the sweetest I can ever remember tasting. If you want some, they are available at Lucky Supermarkets. I wrote a small bit in
Bread and Butter, and have been so grateful that some place in California has some sun and can produce such beauties since my garden certainly has not been producing. Take a look at just some of the ways I've been preparing and enjoying these at home.
The first thing I made was a salad that included the cherry sized Laura McIntosh heirloom tomatoes, and it also had romaine lettuce, black grapes, pumpkin seeds and feta cheese. All topped with EVOO and balsamic vinegar. My Dad asked for seconds on this salad. He never asks for seconds on salad!
And how about waking up to this for breakfast? Pastured fried egg, half a yellow organic heirloom tomato slice all on an organic whole wheat bun. Yellow juice dribbled out the corners of our mouths, but we were in heaven.
I made a simple pizza of a premade crust brushed with EVOO and covered with fresh mushrooms and Laura's heirloom tomatoes then smothered with jack cheese. I put torn fresh basil leaves on the top after the cooking. Simple and satisfying.
I picked up some cognac and dill steeped gravlax at the Mill Valley Farmer's Market. I think the gentleman that sold it to me always has the first stall on the right when you enter the market. At least every time I've been there. His brother catches salmon wild in Alaska and air ships them down here for hand curing and then selling to we lucky ones who find him. I toasted a wheat bagel and spread some of
Three Stone Hearth's tangy yogurt cream on these before draping the gravlax, covering with capers and brightening up with Laura's yellow heirloom cherry tomatoes. The dish was enhanced with a burst of sunshine when biting into these sweet yellow rounds balancing over the top of the usual capers and gravlax creation.
Then there's the classic tomato stacked with buffalo mozzarella and topped with basil leaf. I just poured a little EVOO and balsalmic over these bright yellow, white and green layers and what a perfect start to a meal.
And that was not the end. I gave some to my neighbor who remarked on their sweetness too, more importantly that she could actually eat them as she usually even has to pass on the organic tomatoes in our shared CSA box by because of the acidity. When I heard that, I shared some more. After all I can happily get some more of Laura McIntosh organic heirloom tomatoes at my neighborhood Lucky's.
