What Summer Tastes Like

So, last night I plucked a gigantic basil leaf from my counter-top plant, which I have been eyeing greedily for some time now.  I have been paying a bit more attention to the plant of late, and the results are pretty interesting.  If you don't already have a basil plant on your windowsill year-round, you should have one.  Just sayin.'

Anyway, thanks to my sister Rosalie (and my mom, but those are gone already), my home has been overflowing with fresh tomatoes.  Now, I am a tomato lover at its extreme.  I love them in any way, shape or form, I could eat them at every meal and still be in love.

As I was enjoying yet another dish of insalata caprese (tomato, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, olive oil, oh my), I thought to myself, "this is what Summer tastes like."

Now of course, I am also a huge fan of cookouts; burgers on a grill, macaroni salad, maybe even hot dogs, if I'm feeling crazy.  Corn on the cob, while lovely, is impossible to eat gracefully in public, and I probably haven't done that since I was, perhaps, 8 years old.  Same thing goes for watermelon, which I'm not a huge fan of, anyway, so, it's just as well.

But yes, all of these things are what Summer tastes like, too, and, since none of my family have deemed me worthy to be invited to a cookout just yet (hint hint- Summer is winding down, folks!), I mainly have to content myself with eating these things in the privacy of my own home, indoors, which is decidedly not cookout like.  At all.

Anyway, back to the real god of Summer tastes: tomatoes.

When I was younger, and would follow my father incessantly around the garden, he would occasionally let me taste some of the goodies growing therein.  Some things were not that thrilling (like parsley sprigs), but other things....  if you have never picked and eaten a ripe cherry tomato that is sitting there, warmed by the sun, I command you to go do it.  Right now.  Don't wash it (unless you use pesticides, which is icky).  Just pick it and eat it.

Every time I eat a cherry tomato (alas, I have to put them on my windowsill to get the whole "warmed by the sun" feeling), it brings me right back to that garden of my youth.  A time of innocence, Summers free from school, and the secret privilege of getting cherry tomatoes that never made it into the bowl on the counter.

To me, tomatoes are a sweet gift from the gods, and I'm sad to realize that soon enough we'll be entering a new Season, and the tomatoes scrounged from the supermarket will not be as delightfully plump, and red, and local as they are now.

In the meantime, I will be eating them until they're gone (I'm obsessive that they don't go to waste), and will likely start to resemble a tomato soon enough.  I finished the last of my fresh mozzarella and stale Italian bread last night, but you'll be relieved to know that I still have eggs for omelettes, hamburgers, and tuna fish which will nicely compliment the four remaining tomatoes in my arsenal.

So, forget about ice cream and hot dogs.  If you really want to know what Summer tastes like, go pick a tomato.  And don't forget the basil.  I've got extra, if you need it.