Why tomatoes?

There's something supremely seasonal about tomatoes; in the middle of winter, no matter where they've been imported from, store-bought tomatoes just don't taste like summer. My mother and I have a keen appreciation for heirloom tomatoes, and I've hopped on several cross-country flights toting a large sack of them for her. Living in New Jersey, she scours her local farmers' markets for them, and while this year wasn't a great year for heirlooms, there has been some tomato excitement given the reappearance of the elusive Ramapo, a NJ native.

Given this familial thrill about tomatoes in season, I was quite happy when, in mid-August, the doctor invited me up to Sonoma for the weekend to "put up" some of the tomatoes in their garden. It was a chance to preserve that evanescent taste of summer! (My friend Dr W has been threatening to open a farmstand in front of their house, and their tomatoes are already Net famous, having been profiled in friends' blogs.) So we hot packed a bunch of heirlooms, from Early Girls to Green Zebras, and created some lovely tableaux.

Strangely though, I was most taken with our experimentation with sweet preserves. We had a large batch of tomatoes, and after the hot pack was done, we made tomato preserves from a 1948 recipe I found in the NY Timesand followed that the next day with the tomato preserves ice cream from Tilth, in Seattle. Both were a revelation - the preserves were a beautiful ruby color, with slices of lemon peeking through the chunky redness. And the ice cream was delicate and velvety rich.

Yum! The perfect reward for a long day's work.