Herban Sprawl

Yesterday morning we awakened to frost on the windshields and grass. It was nippy when I stepped out for the paper. Today, however, the Star City has been given the gift of rain. We could have used it earlier in the year, but we still needed it. It’s just inconvenient to have the streets and sidewalks slick with wet leaves.

At the same time, I have been whittling down my stash of the last tomatoes that I coerced BGF into planting. I came home with greenies, neglected to make fried green tomatoes, and had a wonderfully red batch of small, firm maters. I have already made okra and maters for the last time this season. Ahhhh, yum. But for this evening, it’s one last fresh one for the salad, and just for old time’s sake, I popped in little balls of fresh mozzarella.

All summer we gorged on salad Caprese - slices of fresh tomatoes, covered with slabs of fresh mozzarella, liberally covered with chopped Genovese basil, drizzled with some nice olive oil and seasoned with a little salt and pepper. I gave BGF some basil plants, but I don’t think he got around to getting fresh mozz, so he wasn’t motivated to keep those going. He did a stellar job with the tomatoes, though - I am really going to miss them.

When I was a youngster, we’d get a call from Grandma Kate. “I got hungry for ______ (fill in the blank with an Italian specialty). Come pick me.” We’d pile in the car and return with Grandma and a vat of whatever she’d had an urge to eat - gnocchi, stuffed artichokes, cabbage rolls - you name it. What was not a special thing were ravioli, although she was the undisputed Queen of Ravioli in our hometown.

Actually, what she made were tortellini, as my sister and I discovered when we found them in cookbooks. Little bellybutton shaped morsels of heaven, they were. Grandma churned those out as a little cottage industry, so we had a fairly regular supply. But warm weather meant dandelion salad and later, tomatoes.

It’s hard to say goodbye to them, but it’s also important to acknowledge that some foods are better in season where we live, rather than trucked in from a gazillion miles away. Tomatoes fall in that category. So, until next summer, farewell, red orbs of  culinary joy. Farewell, fat leaves of basil. Arriverderci!