We're back from Buffalo and I feel obligated to report that both the trip and the weather were glorious. This makes the third year in a row that our little family has decamped to Western New York in search of at least one decent summer week and we were thrilled that the city of my youth delivered once again. What more can you ask than a full week of the grandparents picking up lunch bills, dinnertime cookouts with all the cousins/grandchildren, two birthday parties, golf every day for the Boy Wonder, playtimes in the park, a pickup softball game, running through two big jugs of blowing bubbles, a whole bagful of Lilly Pulitzer dresses handed down to Entropy Girl from her older cousins and daily HGTV-fests for yours truly? Every vacation should be so.

And now, to business. A reader asks:

How do you scald tomatoes? Do you just boil them?

Pretty much. I just put on a large-ish pot of water to boil and then when it reaches a decently active stage reduce the heat slightly and pop in three or four tomatoes. After a few minutes their skins will split and they can be removed with a strainer to a collander to drain and cool.

As they cool, they'll resemble sad little deflating balloons. I don't bother touching mine until they've pretty much lost all their heat, but if you're in a hurry you can move forward as soon as you can handle them without too much pain. If you're going to puree instead of dice the tomatoes can be dealt with much more quickly since you can just dump them into a food mill skins and all and turn the crank. I have a mill but prefer my tomatoes in a dice.

As I've said, I generally dump my prepared tomatoes into a freezer container until I have enough to can maybe a dozen or more half-pints at once. Other people can as they go and do just two or three jars at once. Whatever makes you happy.