Falling in Love Again -- with Tomatoes

I didn’t grow up liking fresh tomatoes. In fact, for most of my life, I avoided tomatoes as tasteless and of a texture I didn’t like. And even when farmers’ markets began sprouting up all over New Jersey, I took a pass on tomatoes.

Then on the trip south to deliver our first born to college, we left a few days early to check out the mountains of the Carolinas, where my husband envisioned retiring. (That would be before I convinced him that we needed to go to Austin.) We found a bed and breakfast that was straight out of a Tennessee Williams story, and I called for reservations. When I told the owner where we were coming from, he said, “New Jersey? I’ll give you a discount if you’ll bring me a cooler of Jersey tomatoes.”

That’s when I began to suspect there was something special about them.

I’ve since become a complete convert to the joys of fresh, garden-grown tomatoes. (I still refuse to buy those rubber ball tomatoes you get in the grocery store for most of the year. There’s just no comparison in the flavor, the texture, and even the look.) And in what is becoming a rite of summer, I've once again fallen back in love with them. So here in New Jersey, I’m luxuriating in recipes that feature all flavors of tomato: this week, I’ve made a BLT using a hearty red beefsteak tomato, a tangy corn relish made with mellow yellow tomatoes, a sweet-tart marmalade from lemons and green tomatoes, and, of course, my favorite gazpacho recipe from The French Laundry Cookbook. And all the while I’m cooking, I nibble on those lusciously sweet orange Sungold tomatoes from the farmers’ markets. I’m even growing a couple of massive Sungold tomato plants in my Austin garden – plants that amazingly re-seeded themselves from last year, and are starting to look suspiciously like Audrey Jr. from The Little Shop of Horrors.

So while they’re cheap and plentiful, have a tomato – summertime is tomato-time!

Green Tomato and Lemon Marmalade (© The New York Times)

[Kitchen Goddess note: This recipe was posted by Melissa Clark in The New York Times back in 2007. It is a bit runnier than most marmalades, but that just makes it fabulous as sauce over vanilla ice cream, or a glaze for chicken or pork tenderloin. OMG, just thinking about these things makes make want to hurry so I can get back to the kitchen. I have listed it here just as she wrote it, but will tell you that I simmer it a good 35-40 minutes. And the yield she gives is highly suspect: when I made it last night, I filled SEVEN of those half-pint Ball jars.]

1 lemon, thinly sliced and seeded
2 ¼ pounds green tomatoes (about 5 large tomatoes), cored and thinly sliced
3 ¼ cups sugar
2 Tbl fresh lemon juice
Pinch of salt

1. Bring lemon slices to a boil in a pot of water. Drain.

2. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan along with 1/4 cup water, and bring to a simmer, stirring, to dissolve sugar. Cook at a bare simmer until tomatoes and lemon slices are translucent and syrup thickens, 20 to 30 minutes. Cool completely; store in refrigerator.

Yield: 1 3/4 cups.