Category Archives: Tomatowatch

Tomatowatch Yields Results!

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Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes

Last Saturday, I came in to work, and Laura pokes her head in the door and asks, “Would you like a BLT?” No “Hello, how are you, how was your evening?” Just an extremely generous, “Would you like a BLT?”

Have I mentioned I work for great people? Anyway, I accepted with gusto.

Turns out, one of the tomato plants out in the Wine Club garden had finally yielded. And not just any tomato. It gave us three big, luscious, beautiful Cherokee Purples. So this was no wimpy BLT. This was perfection. I’m a firm believer that, as much as I love bacon, the T should be the main ingredient in BLTs, and I was not disappointed here. Thick, juicy slices of tomatoes on toast with lots of lettuce, mayo, and bacon cooker just so (not too crispy, but not so chewy that it all comes off the sandwich with the first bite. Although, honestly, I love mayo almost as much as I love tomatoes (i.e., a lot) , so mayo on toast is still pretty good).

The answer is always YES!

And then, the next day, as I moseyed over to Bergamot Alley to have a drink before noon watch the EuroCup finals, I was asked by my good friend, Doralice, if I would like them to pick up a BLT for me. Well, yes, I would. It would go beautifully with my giant Allagash Victoria Ale modest glass of Pinot Noir.

Twenty minutes after my arrival, after snacking on bacon-flavored kettle corn (REALLY), in came Andre with a tray of the most beautiful BLTs I have ever seen. They were from Zazu on the River, over by our friends at Davis Family Vineyards (go for the Pinot, stay for the pork). And that means one thing: the best bacon in town. On a fresh ciabatta roll (I think. I didn’t get confirmation, but it looked and tasted like ciabatta, and it was delicious). With some sort of delightfully just-enough-spice aioli. And with forty different kinds of tomatoes planted down there, I can’t wait to have another BLT.

And just when you think I couldn’t come up with more about tomatoes, Foggy River put the first ones into my CSA basket this week. Along with gorgeous Armenian cucumbers and beautiful basil. Throw in fromage blanc from Bellwether Farms and toss with apple balsamic from the Philo Apple Farm, and you know summer’s here.

(Oh, and I got rattled at by a Pacific rattlesnake. That’s the other way I know summer’s here. Ugh.)

The Countdown Begins

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I've got my eye on you.

My favorite part of summer is tomatoes. As a kid, I’d sit out in the garden and eat them like apples. My mother was kind enough to plant them next to the basil, so when I was tired of playing down at the creek, I would go out and have myself a veritable feast. It’s a good thing there were no mozzarella plants out there, otherwise I would have never left.

We have one lonely tomato plant at our house: a sun-gold that I’ve got in a planter on the back porch. Our yard is ill-suited for growing tomatoes, being that it’s at the foot of a hill on the north side, and the oak and redwood forest we live in is quite dense. So Tomatowatch 2012 is brought to you once again by the Hawkes Wine Club Garden, maintained meticulously by Alan, aka the Jolly Green Giant, aka the Seven-Foot Samurai.

Tomato Watch!

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This will be a Brandywine. At some point.

A week ago, I wrote about developments in our wine club garden (tomatoes! They’re in there!) and eating my way through two weeks’ worth of CSA veggies. I also ate the first cherry tomatoes from the vine.

Hopefully, I also mentioned that I was writing that on Monday, because on Tuesday, it rained. And I don’t just mean a little late-season sprinkle here and there. I mean, we got well over an inch of precipitation in some parts of the county, gutters overflowed, and the bird-derived schmutz on my windshield that was just out of reach of my wiper blades finally washed off.

Then it cleared up, and it promptly shot up into the triple-digits again. And here we are, tomato-wise at least. As things develop, I will keep you informed. It really isn’t summer without tomatoes.

Sometimes NPR really does cater to its own stereotype. Like the Wednesday-morning headline about arugula, or like the way they talk. There is something about the announcers on NPR. They have such soft, soothing voices. We’ve all seen the Saturday Night Live sketch with Molly Shannon, Ana Gasteyer, and Alec Baldwin. Nobody does the very-nearly-soporific like those three. Except, maybe, Michele Anna Jordan of the Rhonert Park-based KRCB Radio show, “Mouthful.”

My roommate, Jenny, of the Red Car Wine Co., and I got to meet the baby goats!

I confess, I often listen to “Mouthful” when my eyelids aren’t heavy enough. I’m sorry, Michele. I don’t mean to inadvertently disparage your show, but your voice really is the voice that all NPR announcers strive to achieve. I think a voice like that might nearly be a prerequisite to work at a public radio station. She really does give Teri Gross a run for her money.

I bring up “Mouthful” because I downloaded the podcast the other day, and I was excited to hear Emmet and Lynda Hopkins from Foggy River Farm, where I pick up my subscription, talking about Lynda’s book, The Wisdom of the Radish, baby goats, and farming in general. Have yourself a listen, and then stop by the Foggy River farmstand at the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market to say hi to Emmet. He’s there on Saturdays.

Sage!

Speaking of Saturdays and people who are at the Farmers’ Market, the Jimtown Store is also at the Market, and if you missed my blog post from last week, Chef Peter from Jimtown will be joining us on Saturday afternoons starting this weekend—July 9th—cooking up delicious treats from our wine club garden. I also have it on good authority that Jake will be putting sage in the sausage. If that doesn’t tempt you, well … the maybe the musical stylings of Doug and the Gluggers will. There’s more info on our Facebook page, and you can RSVP to the event there. We really hope to see everyone out in Alexander Valley throughout the summer.

Mid-Weekend Musings

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Happy Saturday to all of you! A couple little love notes for y’all.

Zucchini bread, zucchini cake, zucchini salad, zucchini fritters, zucchini soup, zucchini pizza, zucchini gratin, zuch-- oh, is that enough?

We have zucchini! And some little summer squashes. And guess what? They’re yours. That is correct. They belong to you. They won’t be going home with me. They will be going home with several wine club members. The only caveat being, y’all gotta get out here and collect. My homing pigeons can’t fly with a couple pounds of zucchini.

I know such generosity is heretofore unheard of , but believe you me, it’s the gospel truth. And since “gospel” means “good news,” glory, glory, hallelujah, I don’t know of any better news than “we have zucchini for you”! (Actually, that is a small fib. The only better news is “the tomatoes are ripe!” But they’re not…)

So come, have a zucchini adventure. Or a courgette adventure, if you’re one of those wacky Kiwis. Try Paula’s recipe for zucchini pancakes that I posted the other day, or take a leaf out of Jimtown’s book and make yourself some zucchini bread and butter pickles. Either way, come take it away! I’ve picked it, and it’s mocking me from the second shelf in the fridge, and it’s crowding the Chardonnay. And there is nothing worse than claustrophobic Chardonnay. If you’re lacking for ideas, click here: it’s 100 different ways to prepare zucchini. Someone please make the “geeky double chocolate zucchini bread” and tell me how it is. Apparently, it’s “what geeks eat.” And if it’s on the internet, you know it’s true. (On that same note, I saw this first thing this morning. If you ever wondered why Wikipedia is not, and will not ever be, an academic source, there’s your answer. That said, it’s perfectly suited for settling disputes at the dinner table, so long as the dispute is not, apparently, whether it’s “the Beatles” or “The Beatles.” End tangent.)

Soon, my friends.

But the garden is coming along. The basil has almost completely replenished itself from our pesto-induced purge of last week. The herbs are in full swing. I saw the first evidence of eggplant. As you can see, the bell peppers are chugging along. We’ll have zucchini and squash out our ears for quite some time. The corn silk hasn’t quite browned yet, so it will be a little bit for that. The green beans have little sprouted flowers on them. There is even some pretty telltale evidence of potatoes lingering beneath the surface.

But I saw something marvelous this morning when I was poking around out there. Something astounding. Life-altering. I’ve only ever heard rumours of something like this, so rare has it been this year. I felt it on the wind. I perceived the change in my sleep. I — okay, I’ll stop. I saw this:

Yes, believe it or not, I saw a ripening tomato. As I will never be able to convey to you how excited that makes me, I will leave it at that.

The main reason I’m excited to be our social media guru is because it allows me to connect with all of you. And for that reason, I’m putting out a call for comments on blog posts. But not just comments in general. Sure, I’d love to hear that you enjoy my snarky sense of humor and my obsession with vegetables. But I want to know if there is anything you want to know. You know, like about wine or farming or the meaning of life. Real simple things. I can’t promise I’ll know the answer; if I don’t, I’m liable to make something up. Like if you asked me about our farming methods and what sorts of things we do for our grapes that set us apart. I might tell you they’re plied with beer twice a day and massaged with sake. I would be lying (that’s Kobe beef, for anyone keeping track).

But I have access to Stephen, Jake, and Jeremy, and they’re all a veritable wealth of information on a wide array of topics. So if there’s something you want to know, chances are one of them has the answer.

That’s it for now. Have a great weekend, y’all, and we’ll catch you on the other side of Sunday.

Kia ora!