changing tastes
As a kid I didn't like fresh tomatoes. Maybe it was the acidity and the texture ... ??
I remember my mum's dad slicing fresh tomatoes from his garden onto toast, pepper and salt-ing and then eating slowly with deliberate bites. At the time the thought of it made me gag. But the taste of tomatoes was everywhere, and for some some reason the processed stuff seemed OK. Sauce from the supermarket ... yep, no worries.
Along the way something changed dramatically, or at least the potential for the change lay dormant. It prepared me for meeting Maria. Or more precisely, for meeting home cooked Italian food. Ka-boom.
So now, tomatoes are part of our summer lives. Maria is quietly determined that hers will be the best on-vine at the community garden ... the tomato doesn't fall far from the vine. "Mine da best", I hear him say. Earlier this summer it was the closest she's come to depression (slight exaggeration) when she suspected the humidity had got to her crop and that we were doomed to a tomato-less summer.
Thankfully that didn't eventuate and the little plot in our courtyard garden has pumped out buckets of the life giving red fruit. Joy for now and great tasting pasta sauce for the year. Sigh.
I remember my mum's dad slicing fresh tomatoes from his garden onto toast, pepper and salt-ing and then eating slowly with deliberate bites. At the time the thought of it made me gag. But the taste of tomatoes was everywhere, and for some some reason the processed stuff seemed OK. Sauce from the supermarket ... yep, no worries.
Along the way something changed dramatically, or at least the potential for the change lay dormant. It prepared me for meeting Maria. Or more precisely, for meeting home cooked Italian food. Ka-boom.
So now, tomatoes are part of our summer lives. Maria is quietly determined that hers will be the best on-vine at the community garden ... the tomato doesn't fall far from the vine. "Mine da best", I hear him say. Earlier this summer it was the closest she's come to depression (slight exaggeration) when she suspected the humidity had got to her crop and that we were doomed to a tomato-less summer.
Thankfully that didn't eventuate and the little plot in our courtyard garden has pumped out buckets of the life giving red fruit. Joy for now and great tasting pasta sauce for the year. Sigh.
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