…For more than a day, maybe that is when my tomatoes will turn from lime green to a sumptuous red. With the new apartment came a little plot of land, not quite a garden, but this is our attempt. Brian and I planted tomatoes, five plants to be exact. They range in variety from Cherokee Purple, to tiny Grape, and the aptly named, Early Girl, which were the first to fruit.
This fruit came weeks ago, and at first I was patient. (No easy task if you are me.) The blossoms withered and died, and little fetal tomatoes grew in their place, and they continued to grow. At first I was happy for all of rain, it meant little watering had to be done. But then it rained, and it rained some more, and if you weren’t wet enough– here, have some rain. [...]

Let’s pretend it’s still March shall we, because that is when I prepared this comforting bit of soup. March can be a month of maybes, a time of indecision. Is it spring or is it still winter? The thermometer may reach into the 50’s during the days, beckoning you outdoors, only to fall once again below freezing at night, forcing you to pull on you woolen socks to complete your wintertime, pajama ensemble. It all can be a too much to confront.
When I am tired, maybe a tad lazy, and find myself in the kitchen with nary an idea of what to prepare, this soup is ideal. Cream of Tomato Soup is rich, calming, and satisfying, and can be made with what most of us have in the larder on a good day. It is the apotheosis of comfort food. Macaroni and cheese, [...]

Well, I’m back from California. But I suppose that I should have told you that I was going upon leaving. The first of two trips back this summer, aaahh, it is wedding season! Bring on the bouquets; bring on the bridesmaids; and bring on the catered food. Northern California was actually cold when we arrived, balmy and breezy, with a thick layer of marine fog in the morning. Cold though it may have been, the inclement weather did not keep the farmers from harvesting every sort of stellar local produce possible and bringing it to market
California was inspiring. I guess you cannot take the state out of a girl who was born and raised there. There were pies to be made at my parent’s house, with a mixture of stone fruit, and boysenberries so plump they looked like the belly of Santa Claus. [...]

Yes, it’s true, as odd as it may seem, up until this year, tomatoes were not a friend of mine. I was very picky with my consumption. Cooked were fine, roasted even better, but sliced and put on a sandwich– never! Wedges in a salad– no way! And a caprese salad– well you can forget about that too. But this year, it all changed for me, and it wasn’t that I had finally tasted the perfect, heirloom variety tomato. It was just a test of wills.
In January, that blustery, no-good month, I made a resolution, and this from the girl who never makes New Year’s resolutions. 2006 would be, amongst other things, the year of no more food taboos. Never again would I pick apart a sandwich, push a vegetable endlessly around my dinner plate, or ask a waiter or waitress for a substitution. Now I was not a horribly [...]

Usually I tend to be a rather shy person, quiet until I really get to know a person. But take me to a grocery store, and I get positively verbose. I love to chat with strangers in the check-out line about what they are buying. It is very voyeuristic. For those moments you get a glimpse as to what type of person they are. Do they have pets, children? Are they health nuts, junk food junkies? And occasionally someone has something in their cart with which I am unfamiliar. In those cases I have to ask them what it is they’re buying; and what they plan on doing with it.
Last week I was waiting in an endless line at Berkeley Bowl (a ginormous grocery store with an unbelievable ethnic and produce section). I noticed the woman ahead of me in line with a large bag of tightly clustered, tiny, grape-like [...]