14 September 2010

tomato

I like tomatoes, but I'm not one of those people who eats them for fun. I have never been excited to put a tomato into my mouth. I like them in fresh salsa, and as a salad, and even on a good sandwich, but I don't eat them on their own. Just before I moved to Universe City, though, I was staying at S.'s house, and she sent me out to the pots in the driveway to pick some tomatoes for a salad.

I came back inside to report that there were no ripe tomatoes.

"Let me look," S. said, and pointed out to me all the ripe tomatoes. Dudes, they were orange. How was I supposed to know that orange tomatoes were ripe?

Then I ate one, and there was no going back. Orange cherry tomatoes are a whole new tomato.

One of my favorite things about this part of the country is the many, many farmers' markets. In bigger cities (curses on my need to leave Gone West City), there are farmers' markets every day, somewhere in the city. In Universe City there are... fewer. Maybe two. Or three. I don't actually know. I am new here, you know.

There are rows and rows of little green boxes at the farmers' market, full of small globes of yellow and red and orange, and on a whim or a craving (because, as I said, I don't even really like tomatoes that particularly much unless they are drenched in balsamic vinegar and eaten with mozzarella) I bought a box of orange ones and started popping them into my mouth one after another. They burst like berries when you bite them.

They taste like warmth, like summer.

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