But not the last! The yellow pears are coming in fast and furious now so every night sees us with some kind of salad on the table. This one had a bit of plum tomato, mozzarella and green bell pepper dressed in black pepper, salt, olive oil, red wine vinegar and basil. Last night's had no pepper, but more red tomato and an addition of very finely diced red onion. What tonight's will bring remains to be seen. Brainiac thinks I ought to save some for pickling. Perhaps.
I don't think I'm ready for canning the tomatoes just yet. I like to save that until I simply cannot fathom eating another fresh off the vine, which probably won't happen for another two weeks or so. Then I will start to can as a defense mechanism.
In the meantime I've got a loaf of white bread in the oven. I'm so not a good bread baker, but I gladly suffer through for a tomato, mayo and basil sandwich. One a year is usually enough. And then there are tians, fresh tomato pastas, tomato pies (there's a great sounding tomato pie in one of Laurie Colwin's books that I've meant to make for years), tomatoes just eated with a sprinkling of salt, fresh salsas and so much more.
In addition to tomatoes I seek out other signs of long, hot summers.
I'm kind of suprised this and its twin bloomed. We bought them at the very tail end of last summer from a local nursery's scratch-n-dent shelf. They looked wretched all winter and through the spring but I think the payoff is worth a bit of unsightly foliage.