At Last

When we left on vacation, my volunteer tomato plant had produced fruit, but they were hard and green, sullenly refusing to ripen in our sparse sunshine this summer. I knew how it felt - I was wearing socks under my flipflops and sweaters over my tshirts and wondering when summer was going to arrive.

While we were away, however, something magical happened. We returned to one of my favorite times of year - ripe tomato time!

First, we went up to retrieve Cora from the dog ranch where she spends time running around with other doggie pals, and stopped in to have brunch with cousin Jan while we were in the neighborhood. Petaluma gets more sun than we do, so Jan's tomato plants are at least 3x larger than mine and she gave us two tomatoes so ripe they were downright sweet. That's one of hers at the top of the picture, a deeper shade of scarlet than mine.

When we got home, I went out to check on the garden and, lo and behold!, I had red tomatoes, too!  Cue Etta James.

Now, how to use these first few?  We ate one of Jan's in a simple salad, and it was sublime - so sweet and juicy that I was reminded it's not a vegetable, it's a fruit. I have some tomato sandwiches in mind, of course, and a caprese salad, and probably one of these. I hope the rest of them ripen fast, because I have big plans now that summer has arrived - at last!