WHAT CRISPY DOES WITH TOMATOES WHEN THE SEASON BEGINS TO PASS AND HE DWELLS ON BOTH THE MORTALITY OF THE TOMATO AS WELL AS THE MORTALITY OF OTHERS
When my friend Mo was lamenting the tomatoes that she would not be able to eat because she was going to be leave a place that had tomatoes and go to a place that did not have tomatoes and would return to tomatoes after excellent tomatoes were no more, I suggested that she embrace the season that doesn't really have tomatoes and make a recipe that calls for tomatoes ordinare, or, as they are called in Eastern Europe, "Pommes Bourgeois-Trotskyite". Here is one such recipe:RECIPE FOR TOMATOES LONG AFTER TOMATOES HAVE SHUFFLED OFF THEIR MORTAL COIL AND ACHIEVED THE NATIVE HUE OF RESOLUTION
Ingredients
• One batard
• Smoked mozzarella (cut into thin slices)
• Tomatoes that are saying goodbye
• Greek oregano
• Basil
• Olive oil
• Black pepper
NOW THEN:
Cut the batard into slices and grill the bottoms in olive oil until 'golden brown' (you know, just like McDonalds.) Halve the tomatoes, brush them with olive oil and roast them in the oven (until what have you.) Then chop the mighty hot tomatoes into little choppy bits and place them on the batards slices, and then cover them with the smoked mozzarella, a little olive oil (I don't know why) and crushed black pepper. Broil the batards in the oven until, well, you know, and then remove them with great caution, being careful to use a reliable pair of oven mitts and not watching the television while you are removing them from the oven, and place dainty amounts of chopped oregano and basil on top. Goes great with vaguely frothy American beers like Hennepin.
I guess you could call this 'pizza.' I call it 'Recipe That Burnt My Hands Because of my Bad & Unreliable Oven Mitts and the Loud Television Programs.'
all artwork, including monsters but not old timey photographs,
® mr. crispy flotilla, 2007
Comments
Well, you and the youngster should be feeling quite full of yourselves. It was bloody
difficult to find a postcard in the Shibuya district as 14 year old girls are not in the market for them. I finally had to procure it at Narita airport. When I checked
in at JAL, they gave me a pass to the brand new multi-million dollar Sakura lounge. But me, I dutifully sat outside of security writing to you two.
Happily the pc is secure in the big orange box eventually to be en route to you. And now I am in the quite lovely Sakura lounge
getting a buzz on Asahi Dry to prep for the 11 hour flight home (1.5 hours longer
this way due to headwinds). Only in Japan: remove chilled beer glass from
mini fridge in Sakura lounge. Place on chrome plate. Push "push" button. Chrome prongs emerge, grasp glass, lift and, yes, tilt the glass. Asahi Dry gently flows into glass. At about 2/3's full, prongs right glass to vertical so that continuing flow creates just the correct 4 centimeters of foam.
I can't wait to try your tomato dish (though I would never call it pizza). But with any luck I will have to wait as when I arrive home tomatoes may only be a touch past peak. One year I had tomatoes until Thanksgiving. The green sort which are ripened in a bag with a banana, you know. But it bodes well for my still enjoying a couple of weeks of tomatoes.
Well, I must leave paradise now for boarding. But here's the tricky part. As I am logged in to the internet from Narita, the blog page is all in Kanji. So, I will now click buttons at random, Mr. Tortilla and hope that this response reaches you.
Your tomato deprived friend,
Mo
The important news is that red tomatoes were waiting for me. A couple of cucumbers, too. Basil. I had a literally hot-off-the-vine tomato sandwich. Truth be told, I used mayo...something wonderful about the creaminess and sourness of mayo on a tomato sandwich. This tomato was nearly sweet. My tomatoes have definitely not
been getting tons of water while I was gone, so they are not huge, but they are almost like the late in the season dry-farmed tomatoes which the organic farmers in the Santa Cruz mountains raise. Do you see dry-farmed tomatoes in other regions? The farmers stop watering the tomato plants, so the plants dig deep for water and the flavor is very concentrated--same principal as with wine grapes, in fact. Here in the Bay Area we have a special treat at the very end of the tomato season. Just when the anxiety of 8 months without genuine tomatoes starts to build, the organic farmers offer up the small dry-farmed jewels...(typically in October).
My promise: not another post on tomatoes.
Celebrating the last day of August,
Mo