its starting to taste like summer

when i arrived here a few weeks ago, i had heard about a mysterious tomato field about a mile away that contained both tomatoes and basil. the tomato plants weren't ready yet, and the basil was just getting bigger.

emily and i had no access to the tomato field, mainly because we didn't know where it was. then, about a week ago, shelby showed us where it was hiding and we ventured off in the mule (the 'mule' is a vehicle that we use to drive around the ranch - see photo) to check things out for ourselves. you see, our farm has apparently been very well known for its heirloom tomatoes in the past, shipping them around the country, to whole foods, and supplying area chefs in fresno and monterey. in fact, the variety of tomatoes listed on our website was one of the big selling points for my wanting to come here. check it out for yourself.

when emily and i visited the field, we found a few tomatoes; but really, just a few. maybe a handful in total. this was monday night, i believe. (to be fair, we didn't check out the entire field, but maybe only 1/3) today, however, was CSA day: the day that the boxes are filled and delivered to our CSA memebers. farmer john has some of his other workers help us on thursdays, and shortly past 11 am, jesus pulled up in the mule with 5 trays of tomatoes and 2 massive buckets of basil. unreal! there were tomatoes of all sizes and colors and shapes. i was amazed, and couldn't help but think, where were all of these on monday? did they just grow in the last 3 days? ahhh! tomato overload!

well no, not really. at noon we took our break, and i decided that for lunch, i would have a tomato and goat cheese salad. i sliced a maroon tomato fairly thick and its juice ran down my arm a dark crimson. it looked like a beet on the inside! wow. i had some leftover mozzarella, and also some of the fresh chevre that emily and i made (i coated some in black pepper and used it for the salad). i topped it all off with a chiffonade of basil and some balsamic vinegar, olive oil and touch of salt.

it was the most perfect lunch. light, fresh, beautiful.

our counter is now filled with a variety of tomatoes. we've taste-tested them all and we have our favorites. currently, mine is the green zebra. they are green and orange and are a little more tart than your average tomato, but have a really strong tomato taste that you wouldn't expect just by looking at them.

the best part of all of this is that these are the season's "first tomatoes", and according to farmer john, they don't compare whatsoever to what is going to come next. he keeps telling us to "just wait". i'm not sure if i can handle the suspense.