It's Tomato Time!!!

That's right ladies and gentlemen....it's tomato time in Central Pennsylvania. After months and months of waiting, we are finally overrun with the sweetest fruit of the summer, the tomato. However, the tomatoes we are getting at the restaurant are no ordinary tomatoes. We are using, at times, 10 different heirloom varieties grown for us by Kathy Glahn of Gettysburg Heirlooms in Gettysburg, PA. I think the biggest key is to eat as many tomatoes as you can during August and September and then shut them out for the rest of the year until you see them crop up again in mid-July. Eating a 'cardboard' tomato just for the sake of eating it is doing yourself a HUGE disservice. Get excited about the season....buy as many tomatoes as you can and make salsa, tomato juice, canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, gazpacho, and the list goes on and on. If you have tomato plants in your garden, take the time to stop after picking them and breath in the wonderful scent the leaves place into the air. It really is intoxicating and is a huge part of summer. I wish someone would bottle this aroma for me...I'd spray it all over the house in the wintertime just to remember how wonderful it is to have a just picked from the vine, never refrigerated, only warmed by the sun tomato.